When Worlds Crossover
by Francis456
Summary: Higurashi/Death Note. After Shion gets a Death Note and realises that it's real, she and her sister, Mion are taken to the Death Note World, where they get between L and Light's battle with their own attempts at unmasking Kira.
1. Death Note

**When Worlds Crossover**

**Death Note**

**Disclaimer** – I do not anything from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni or Death Note. Higurashi is the property of Ryūkishi07 07th Expansion and Studio Deen and Death Note is the property of Tsugumi Ōba, Takeshi Obata, Shūeisha Inc. and MADHOUSE Inc.

* * *

**Summary** – In the Shinigami Realm, Ryuk is not the only Shinigami who's bored and feels that the world is rotting. Another Shinigami, Turrok (pronounced Too-Rock) is also bored. After hearing about the Endless June of 1983 from Ryuk, Turrok decides to travel to the world in which Rika managed to finally beat fate and come out alive. One year after 1983 in the June of 1984, Turrok drops his spare Death Note, which is picked up by Sonozaki Shion, who is at first sceptical and believes it to be a prank, but after writing her grandmother's name and learning the following day that Oryō died from a heart attack from her sister, Mion, Shion decides to try the Death Note again, to see if Oryō's death was indeed a coincidence or not, targeting the three punks whose bikes are usually parked outside Angel Mort and after realising that the Death Note is real and Mion, upon witnessing the deaths of the three punks and reading the notebook comes to the horrifying realisation that Shion killed their grandmother, but curious about the Death Note herself, tries it out on the police detective who replace Ōishi Kuraudo, who's been giving the Sonozaki Family grief due to their Yakuza connections and upon realising that the notebook is real, both twins retreat to Shion's apartment where they meet Turrok, who explains everything to them and upon learning that neither twin is interested in the notebook anymore, transports them the world of October 2006, giving them till the end of the year to find a way to provide him with some entertainment or they both will have their names written in his notebook. Anyway, from the end of November going into December, criminals start dying of mysterious heart attacks and Kirā emerges. However, as it turns out, Shion happened to be in the same convenience store Yagami Light happened to be in when Shibuimaru Takuo was killed and studying Light's reactions, comes to the conclusion that he may have a Death Note and could possibly be Kirā and using disguises and fake names, the Sonozaki Twins try to get close to Light and spread rather unsavoury rumours about him, hoping that it'll anger him to the point of him blurting out something incriminating, but they soon attract the attention of L, the world's greatest detective, who suspects them of withholding information. Can the Sonozaki Twins bring down Kirā without Light learning of their true appearance and names or will they find their names in Light's Death Note and also, can they both adjust to the changing events as things progress, especially with the emergence of a second Kirā and will the taskforce be able to convince them into helping them? One thing's for sure, things descend into madness as the rumours about Light slowly drive him further and further into insanity.

* * *

**Shinigami Realm – Wednesday 25****th**** October 2006**

The Shinigami Realm was nothing more than a vast grey barren wasteland with the sky being permanently overcast with grey clouds with the occasional break which showed a pale white sky above the clouds. Littering the wasteland were old rusted metal machines that were slowly rusting away to nothing and had been lying for so long that none of the realm's current inhabitants could remember what they had once been. Huge metal chains also sat anchored to the ground and leading into a cave; this was where the Shinigami King resided. There were also lots of curved pointed outcrops in the ground shaped like rib bones with two sitting on opposite sides with the points facing one another. Those formations tended to be situated in pairs and when those pairs were lined up, appeared to form a pathway. towards the Shinigami King's cave. Bones and other huge rocks also littered the landscape along with the occasional tree that had long since become petrified and entities of various shapes and sizes lay congregating in the vast wasteland.

Atop a huge rock overlooking a staircase that descended into a bright white light, two of those entities stood looking down into the light.

"So, are you really sure that you want to do this?" one asked the other curiously, "I just don't see how you can manage?"

"Well, Ryuk, let's just say that yer not da only one who can trick da Big S inta gettin' a spare notebook," the second entity replied with a chuckle.

"Don't you mean the Old Man, Turrok?" the first entity, Ryuk asked with a small hint of fear in his voice, "You know how the Shinigami King gets when you call him that."

"A ain't afraid o' 'im," Turrok boasted smugly, "Besides, he ain't 'ere, is he, so how can he complain?"

"Good point," Ryuk pointed out with a raspy cackle, "Anyway, you managed to fool the Old Man into giving you a second notebook? And here I thought I was special."

"Nope, sorry, but ya ain't special no more," Turrok boasted as he showed his companion that he did indeed possess two notebooks.

"Well, that's too bad," Ryuk said with an uncaring shrug, "Anyway, so you're off to the human world, I take it."

"Yep, but a ain't goin' ta da present," Turrok replied as he explained his intentions, "Didn't ya say that dis witch, Lamb…something or other commissioned ya ta kill for 'er?"

"Lambdadelta," Ryuk replied, sounding a tad bit offended, "And she didn't commission me as you put it, she bribed me with entertainment."

"A see," Turrok said with a nod.

"Corse, what she neglected to mention was that I would be the one who would provide the entertainment," Ryuk stated simply, "In other words, I ended up making my own entertainment."

"Gee, that don't sound like ya, Ryuk," Turrok replied with a tone of slight disappointment, "Yer usually not one ta create yer own entertainment, but rather, ya have others do dat for ya."

"Well, Lambda's a very powerful being," Ryuk said with a hint of fear in his voice and he involuntarily shivered at just thinking about the blonde-haired witch, "She's definitely not an enemy even the Shinigami King would want to have. As the Witch of Certainty, it is said that she has the power to kill unfailingly, though if you want my opinion, she basically just comes here and hires Shinigami to kill for her."

"Sounds like a total fraud ta me," Turrok said, shaking his head in disappointment.

"I wouldn't insult her if I were you," Ryuk replied in a serious tone that told his friend that he was no longer joking around, "As right as you probably are, Lambda is indeed very powerful and I doubt even the Old Man would want to mess with her."

"'Kay, Ryuk, Al take yer word for it," Turrok said, though from his tone, it was clear that he was still not convinced of Lambdadelta's power, but decided not to pursue the matter further.

"Anyway, over a century ago, Lambda was involved in this game," Ryuk explained as he recounted his past with Lambdadelta, "Basically, she's a witch, but she's more like a god like being and she's not the only one. There are more of them and basically, they exist in this strange world called the Meta World that's sort of like a limbo between dimensions and these witches like to play games using humans as their game pieces and pit them against one another and sometimes, these games span across multiple dimensions and each individual dimension is represented by a fragment or kakera."

"And why would dey do dat?" Turrok asked curiously, "Sounds ta me like dey possibly tear entire dimensions apart just for the sake of dose games of deirs."

"Well, let's just say that us two and those witches have one thing in in common, which explains why they play those games," Ryuk replied sounding somewhat smug, "Like us, they're bored, which was why I was able to relate to Lambda when I met her and realised her intentions. You see, Lambda was involved in a game in which her piece, a woman who looked remarkably like her, a Takano Miyo was trying to kill her opponent's main piece, a ten-year-old girl by the name of Furude Rika because she was delusional and believed that by killing her and then wiping out her village, she would prove her grandfather's research into this strange disease was correct. Anyway, Rika had this spirit like friend called Hanyū, who was her one thousand-year-old ancestor and each time Rika died, Hanyū would transport her to another kakera and the whole process would repeat itself, albeit sometimes in a different way, but in all but the final kakera, Rika wound up dead and that game gave birth to Lambda's greatest rival, Bernkastel."

"Am not sure a follow ya, but Al bite," Turrok said in confusion, "So where da ya come in? Did ya kill Rika?"

"You got it," Ryuk said triumphantly with a sinister raspy laugh as his permanent grin seemed to widen even further, "That's what Lambda had me do. Not only did I kill Rika, but all of her friends as well. Everything they did that led up to their deaths… it was all written in my Death Note and not only that, but with all that kakera-hoping, I was able to write the same people's names in my Death Note repeatedly and kill off the same people repeatedly. Lambda may have neglected to mention that I would be making my own entertainment, but you know what, after witnessing the same people die over and over in so many different ways, it was so totally worth it."

He then let out a rather triumphant laugh, indicating that he was indeed glad that it happened.

"So why'd ya stop?" Turrok asked in confusion, clearly not understanding why his friend had stopped, "Did ya run out o' ways ta kill 'em?"

"Let's just say that Bern got involved and made me a better offer with a game set in 1986 at a place called Rokkenjima, but that Battler guy made the whole thing boring, so I left," Ryuk explained, sounding a bit disappointed, "And now I'm bored again."

"Sorry ta 'ear dat," Turrok said as he jumped down to the staircase, "Well see ya, Ryuk, Am off ta… where was it that dis Rika girl lived?"

"Hinamizawa!" Ryuk called out to his friend, "Though, be sure to find the right kakera, in most of them, Hinamizawa no longer exists. Takano or should I say, I had Takano slaughter the villagers in most of them using my Death Note. Of course, in all but one of the kakera that Hinamizawa still exists, Rika and her friends are mostly dead!"

Turrok then nodded to himself, deciding that he'd hunt down the kakera in which Rika and her friends were still alive past June 1983. Upon reaching the bottom of the staircase, he came to a ledge overlook the source of the bright white light and wisps of light periodically rose up from the brightness.

"Now, dis is gonna be tricky," the Shinigami mused to himself, "A need ta get ta another dimension. How can a get dere?"

"Perhaps I can be of assistance," a female voice spoke up causing the Shinigami to spin round and his eyes widened as he saw a long-haired human-shaped silhouette emerge from the darkness.

* * *

**Okinomiya, XX Prefecture, Japan – Thursday 21****st**** June 1984**

In was about a year about Takano's defeat and the Great Hinamizawa Disaster had been averted and life had slowly gotten back to normal. Rika had finally pushed through and managed to shatter the broken record that had once been the Endless June of 1983, but only Rika and Hanyū, who had now acquired a physical body of her own and had essentially gained a second chance at life knew about all the previous worlds though the others were occasionally haunted by the memories of what they had done in some of those previous worlds in which they manifested as nightmares. However, none of them realised that they were in fact memories and so, they were mostly ignored.

Anyway, Sonozaki Shion was currently in her Angel Mort uniform working at her uncle's, Angel Mort establishment and was minding her own business. She was one of those who was occasionally plagued with nightmares and in some of the previous worlds, she had gone insane and went on a killing spree, convinced that everybody she had murdered had been responsible for the disappearance of the boy she had fallen in love with, Hōjō Satoshi, including his little sister, Satoko since she believed that her dependence on her brother had placed a heavy burden on his shoulders and was putting him under stress and Shion had twisted that particular fact into becoming a factor in Satoshi's disappearance, though it was only after she had killed Satoko that she came to realise that she was becoming a monster after recalling Satoshi telling her to look after Satoko, but she decided that she had gone too far and that atonement was out of her grasp and proceeded to kill her identical twin sister, Mion, whom she had been posing as. However, in the end while making her way back to her apartment after stabbing Mion's love interest, Maebara Keiichi, she had gotten caught up in her excitement and slipped and fell to her death, though she knew that she could have possibly saved herself, she had realised that she had gotten so caught up in her anger and rage over Satoshi's disappearance that she had in essence, ruined her own life and opted to die.

Anyway, as it turned out, Satoshi had been alive and was in a medically induced coma underneath Hinamizawa's Irie Clinic suffering from Hinamizawa Syndrome, a disease that drove people to insanity through paranoia and hallucinations and also drove its victims to commit murder and eventually suicide. In truth, Satoshi had murdered his abusive aunt two years previously during Hinamizawa's annual Watanagashi Festival to protect his sister and while in Okinomiya after purchasing a teddy bear that he intended to give to Satoko, he ran into Dr. Irie, who offered him a lift back to the village, but while on the way back, Satoshi became rather paranoid and hallucinated that everyone was transforming into his aunt and that she was out to get him and so, Irie drove him back to the clinic and had him sedated while he conducted research in search of a permanent cure. and only Shion knew about this. Irie had told her not to tell anyone about Satoshi and that he only told her because he knew how badly she was missing him, though Shion suspected that he knew how much she secretly resented Mion for being able to see the boy she loved while she couldn't.

Anyway, pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind, she noticed that her sister was currently sitting over by the window with her Gaming Club that consisted of herself, Maebara Keiichi, Ryūgū Rena, Mion's best friend and potential rival for Keiichi's affections, Hōjō Satoko, Furude Rika and Furude Hanyū, the newest member of the group who arrived a few days before Takano was defeated. Smirking to herself, she decided to have a bit of fun teasing Mion and wanting to see just how much of a rise she could get out of her sister.

"Damn it, I can't believe I lost again," Keiichi was complaining as he was bashing his head on the table repeatedly, after having lost yet another club activity, "Why do I keep losing? It's like someone up there really has it in for me."

"That's just your bad luck, Kei-chan," Mion boasted somewhat smugly, "Though you should consider yourself fortunate that I seem to have misplaced the dress I wanted you to wear."

"How could you have misplaced that dress, Mī-chan?" Rena asked, clearing unhappy that Keiichi was not being put through a punishment game, "I was so looking forward to see how cute Keiichi-kun would look in it."

"Why, so you could take me home?" Keiichi said in a nonplussed tone as he rolled his eyes.

"I have to admit that I'm surprised that you didn't make him wear one of the spares, Mion-san," Satoko said before Rena could reply.

"Well, to be honest, he's already worn those and well, it just would seem strange if he was to wear an outfit that he's already worn," Mion replied in her defence with a sigh.

"Hey, I'm right here, you know!" Keiichi protested, not all that happy that the others was discussing him as if he was not there.

"So, I wonder what else we can have him do," Mion went on, choosing to ignore Keiichi's protest much to his chagrin.

"Hey!" Keiichi shouted, causing Shion to laugh as she decided to make her presence known.

"Konichiwa, mina," she greeted in a rather cheerful and carefree voice before turning her attention towards Keiichi, "Hey, Kei-chan, what's wrong? Don't tell me that my wicked witch of a sister has you doing another of her punishment games again."

"Sh… Shion," Mion said in surprise, clearly not expecting, and neither was she pleased to see her sister, "What are you doing here?"

"Why, onē, I'm hurt," Shion replied in a teasing tone that was laden with mock hurt, "Haven't you forgotten that I work here?"

"Oh yeah," Mion grumbled under her breath, clearly not all that happy to see her sister since she knew that Shion was planning on teasing her.

"Hi, nē-nē," Satoko greeted cheerfully upon seeing the girl that had become somewhat of a surrogate sibling to her.

Shion then turned towards Satoko and flashed her a smile. It was true that two years previously, Shion had hated Satoko, believing her to be the root cause of all her brother's problems and she remembered that one day while posing as Mion at school in order to get close to Satoshi, she had furiously beat Satoko up after she had started crying over the fact that she had spilt her lunch, but Satoshi had come to his sister's aid, punching her across the room and Shion remembered how Mion was left to deal with the fallout from that incident since everyone there had thought that it was indeed Mion that had hurt Satoko, but thankfully Satoshi had accepted her apology and had told Shion, though he really believed her to be Mion to look after Satoko for him and Shion did indeed stick to that promise, becoming rather aggressive in her defence of Satoko, though she had to admit that her nightmares in which she had gone mad and ended up stabbing Satoko to death had something to do with it. She could not really explain it, but for some reason, she felt as if that had actually happened. Every time she would have that nightmare, she would wake up feeling that it was more of a repressed memory trying to surface than an actual nightmare and she felt that by getting close to and protecting Satoko, she was ensuring that she would not become the person she had been in her nightmare, though it did feel as if she was trying to make up for what she had done to Satoko in her nightmare, which made no sense since that had not actually happened, had it?

Anyway, putting those thoughts aside, Shion brought her attention back to Keiichi.

"So you lose another of my sister's games?" she asked in a playfully flirtatious tone.

"Y-y-yeah," Keiichi said, being taken completely aback by Shion's flirty nature.

Mion felt her anger increase at seeing her sister flirt with the boy she liked. She knew that Shion was just doing it to tease her, but she could not help but get annoyed anyway. It was as if Shion believed that the only purpose in her existence was just simply to annoy her, though Mion knew that Shion was just doing what many siblings did with one another. It was natural for siblings to annoy one another and yet, Mion just could not resist walking into her sister's proverbial trap. She knew that Shion was expecting her to object and in fact she knew that that was her intention and yet, despite knowing this, she just could not resist giving her sister the rise that she was looking for.

"Go away, Shion," she said furiously, clearly not appreciating her sister's presence, "No one wants you here."

"My, my, I was expecting you to be wearing one of those ridiculous frilly dresses that she likes to put you in," Shion went on, ignoring Mion's comment as she placed her index finger on Keiichi's chest and made little circles round his left pectoral muscle, which only further served to aggravate Mion.

"W, well, she was going to make me wear something, but she seemed to have misplaced it," Keiichi explained as he started to feel rather uncomfortable and was still shocked at Shion's behaviour.

"Shion!" Mion growled dangerously in a low voice as she felt her hands ball into fists, "I'm warning you!"

"She misplaced your punishment dress, that's not like her," Shion said, acting surprised and even placed her hands over her mouth to make it all the more convincing, though it was clear that she was clearly faking it.

She then turned her attention to Mion, who was clearly fuming and it only served to bring a smile to her face.

"My, my, onē, you're not usually forgetful, I wonder if this is just a one-off," she boasted teasingly, pretending to ignore her sister's current mood, "Or maybe you're starting to become forgetful. Maybe you're in the early stages of dementia."

"But, Shī-chan, isn't Mī-chan too young for that?" Rena asked curiously, clearly clueless that Shion was just teasing her sister.

"Maybe she's a freak-case," Shion replied, much to Mion's displeasure.

"I don't have dementia!" Mion snapped, causing Keiichi to jump in startled shock, "It was just a one-off, I'm sure, now go away!"

"Whatever you say," Shion said, still in her playfully carefree tone that only served to infuriate Mion even further and she turned her attention back to Keiichi to further get under her sister's skin, "Well, if you're ever looking for an escape from that Wicked Witch of the West, just come round to my apartment."

However, before Keiichi could reply, Shion leaned really close to him and brought her face right up to his and for a moment it appeared as if she was going to give him a kiss on his lips and Keiichi felt his eyes widen in shock as he was complete caught off guard and had no idea how to react, but then before their lips met, Shion pulled away at the last minute and then shot Mion a rather smug look as if to say, "Gotcha".

"Well, I best be going," she said with a laugh, "Otherwise Mion's gonna bite my head off. Sayonara, mina, till next time."

She then left, leaving a rather stunned Keiichi and a fuming Mion and everyone else just had shocked looks on their face, clearly unsure what to make of what had just happened.

"Bite your head off, I'll do a lot more than that when I get my hands on you!" Mion shouted after her sister, waving her arms in the air.

"Oh my, you'll get your hands on me!" Shion called back in mock shock, "Could it be that I was wrong about you and Kei-chan and that you actually want me in the sack!"

Mion looked confused for a moment, but then the implications of Shion's statement slammed into her like a ton of bricks and caused her to scream in frustration that Shion had succeeded in getting her yet again. However, while Mion calmed down and the others moved on and started to talk amongst themselves, no one noticed that outside, a notebook with a dark grey cover and white katakana lettering fall to the ground having seemingly fallen from the sky.

* * *

Later that same day after Mion and the others had left, Shion walked out of the Angel Mort complex in her normal casual clothes after finishing her shift. The sun was already starting to go down and the sky was a bright orange hue. Anyway, Shion could not help but remember how she came to work at Angel Mort. It was a known fact that within the Sonozaki Family whenever twins were born to the Head of the Family, then the second born was strangled to death before their first bath. However, fortunately for Mion and Shion, their grandmother, Oryō did not have the heart to go through with it. Since Oryō was the Head of the Sonozaki Family, it had fallen upon her to carry out the deed, but she could not do it and so the second born was spared. In truth however, Shion was really the oldest, having been born as Mion and Mion was really the younger twin having been born as Shion, though Shion remembered back when she was still "Mion" that she hated it that her sister was effectively being ostracised and constantly being trodden on and all because of the simple fact that she was alive. Shion knew that there were many in the Sonozaki Family who were not happy that her sister was still alive and she knew that if any of those people had been the Head of the Family, then Mion would have been killed long ago. However, Shion had come up with the idea of them both trading places because she felt that her sister deserved a chance at happiness. However, unfortunately during one of those switches, her sister had been branded with the Oni tattoo that was reserved for the next head of the family and that was how she had become Shion on a permanent basis. The Oni tattoo should be on her back since she was the oldest and she did admit that she was a bit peeved at that. However, that did not change how she felt about her sister.

She remembered after that incident that "Shion" had ran away from home and she remembered finding her sister cold, wet, hungry and terrified for her life and she thought that "Mion" was going to kill her, but instead all it did was bring them closer and Shion (the current Shion) remembered vowing that no matter what, she would protect her sister no matter what. However, the tattoo had made switching rather difficult and all of a sudden, Shion found herself dealing with what her sister had had to deal with. She was now the one that was being ostracised and persecuted. However, she managed to take it in her stride. However, she did remember that after Mion had run away that when they both returned, Oryō blamed her for it and even though Mion tried to reason with her, Oryō had basically struck her as well for daring to defend her. It was no secret that Mion was also resented by some of the Sonozaki Family for being close to her and refusing to get in line with them. Anyway, eventually Oryō had seen her continued presence as a problem and had her sent away to St Lucia Boarding School, or as she called it, a "Factory for Manufacturing Ladies" and she was constantly on the bad side of the administration, always getting into trouble for one thing or another, but she managed to escape after studying the layout of the building and the security detail and her uncle, Yoshirō, who thankfully was not among those who had despised her hired her to work at his establishment, though she had to pose as Mion, which in other words, she was temporarily regaining her true name.

However, unfortunately, Oryō had found out about her escape from St Lucia and was understandably furious, but it wasn't until after the Watanagashi Festival after Satoshi had murdered his aunt that Oryō discovered where she had been hiding after the police confronted Satoshi about his aunt's murder and she had provided him with a false alibi and had to tell them who she really was because she had been disguised as Mion at the time and Mion had been seen at the festival. However, what she did not account for was that the police would get in contact with the Sonozaki Household to confirm that she was indeed who she said she was and the fact that Satoshi had been persecuted and ostracised by the village because of his stepfather and mother's support of the Dam Project only served to aggravate the situation even further, though Shion knew that those who despised her were probably secretly glad that she was wanting to pursue a relationship with Satoshi since they what have the perfect excuse to bring their displeasure out into the open. However, Shion did not let that get her down and let her grandmother know exactly what she thought of her to her face, but Mion, seeing that the situation was close to getting out of hand stepped in and taking up her role as the Family's heiress had managed to get her to apologise to their grandmother and as punishment, she had been forced to rip out three of her fingernails from her left hand, though she managed to rip one out, she had started to freak out and two Sonozaki henchmen had to do the other two.

"Can't say that I'm happy about that, onē," she thought to herself as she remembered how she had briefly come to hate Mion for siding with the grandmother, "But now that I think about it, had it not been for you, I probably would have ended up in real hot water."

She had to admit that much. Before Mion had stepped in, Shion was considering physically lashing out at Oryō and had Mion not stepped in, she would have probably punched their grandmother and she would have had to have faced an even more frightening punishment because of it. Considering what those other punishments were, Shion had long since come to realise that having three of her fingernails ripped out was fairly light in comparison to what she probably would have been put through if she had physically struck their grandmother, so in a way, Mion had actually saved her and she remembered Mion apologising afterwards, after Satoshi had disappeared, though Shion remembered saying that she did not blame her and that she had only done what was expected of her as heiress, which was true, but the truth was, she did have a degree of resentment towards her sister and Mion knew it as well and that just seemed to make it even worse. However, after Mion had mentioned Satoshi, Shion remembered how she had briefly become enraged and tried to strangle Mion, only stopping when she noticed that Mion also had three fingernails missing and Mion had been reduced to tears and it was clear that their whole arrangement and the system that the Sonozaki Family abided by upset her. Shion knew that her sister was aware of her suppressed resentment towards her and it upset her. Mion was upset because she knew that her sister had a bit of resentment towards her.

"Gomenasai, onē," Shion whispered as she let out a sigh as, hanging her head down.

Despite her resentment, she also loved her sister and she remembered that promise she had made to her when she had discovered her with the tattoo on her back.

"Guess I'm not really that good at keeping my promises, am I?" she went on as she started to walk towards her apartment.

However as she brought her head up to look in front of her, she could not help but notice a dark grey notebook lying on the ground with everyone else walking by ignoring it.

"Huh, someone must've dropped their notebook," she said to herself as she quickly went over to where it was and picked it up, not really all that happy that everyone else was just ignoring it, "Yeah, that's right, it's not mine, so it's not my problem. Oh, I just can't stand idiots like that."

However, curiously, she studied the notebook and found white lettering on the front that was written in katakana and which read "Desu Nōto".

"Desu Nōto, what as in the Japanese pronunciation of the English Death Note?" Shion said, looking somewhat confused before her eyes widened at a rather frightening possibility, "Wow, could it belong to an assassin who keeps a list of all his hits in this notebook?"

She could not help but feel a bit fearful at that moment, realising that she may be holding something that could implement an assassin in unsolved deaths or deaths that had originally been passed off as accidents. What she had could possibly prove that certain people who initially were believed to have perished in accidents could have been murdered. Curiously though and defying her better judgement, Shion opened the notebook and was surprised to find that the pages were all totally blank apart from the lines that were provided for the writer to write on.

"Guess I'm safe," she sighed with relief, "Guess they haven't started using it yet."

She then cautiously looked over her shoulder, half expecting the notebook's owner to be standing behind her and ready to kidnap her since she remembered in the past when she had accidentally knocked over three motorcycles and upon trying to leave the area, she was suddenly confronted by the motorcycles' irate owners. She was half expecting something similar here. However, fortunately, there was no one behind her and she cautiously looked around her in case there was indeed someone watching her, but fortunately there was no one and she then let out a sigh of relief.

"Gee, I'm getting really jittery," she said to herself, "Okay, Shion, calm down, no one's going to kidnap you."

Looking through the notebook once more, she double-checked to make sure that it was blank, though she was still partially fearful that the notebook's owner would show up and kidnap her just for having picked it up and seeing what it was. However, as she came to the first page since she had been scrolling through it backwards and brought it down on top of the other pages, she noticed white writing on the back of the front cover.

"How to use it," Shion read, speaking aloud, "The human whose name is written in this notebook shall die."

As she spoke, her tone became one of pure boredom and disbelief.

"Oh come on, this is obviously someone's ide of a joke," she went on with a laugh, berating herself for thinking that she had picked up an assassin's hitlist, "Just a joke. The human whose name is written in this notebook shall die. So what, I write someone's name and that person just drops dead or something?"

She closed the notebook, despite there being other instructions, but she was no longer interested as she decided that it was just a prank. She then walked over to a dustbin that was sitting in the edge of an alleyway and lifting the lid, she placed the notebook over the round opening. However, before she let go, for some reason, she hesitated. Looking at the notebook, she just could not help but become rather curious about it again.

"What, come on, that's just a load of baloney, there's no way that something like that's real," she said to herself as she made a second attempt to drop the notebook, but once again, her curiosity stopped her from dropping it in.

She just could not explain it. Something about the notebook had piqued her interest and no matter how much she tried to dismiss it, it was as if part of her just refused to let it lie. She had considered taking it to the local police station, but unfortunately for her, Detective Ōishi Kuraudo's replacement did not like the Sonozaki Family all that much due to their Yakuza links and she knew that he would probably claim that she had stolen it or worse, claimed that it belonged to her and would undoubtedly stitch her up as an assassin. Yukimoto Ginjurō was his name and not only did he hate the Sonozaki Family, he was convinced that they had something to do with the Watanagashi disappearances and murders despite it being proven that they had just been a series of coincidences and Takano and the Yamainu had been proven to have been behind at least some of them, but that was not good enough for Yukimoto. In fact, he was convinced that the Sonozaki Family had been in league with the Yamainu and had effectively cut their losses when it was clear that they were beaten. In other words, he was basically Ōishi before Takano's defeat since Shion knew that Ōishi had also believed that the Sonozaki Family were behind everything and had been determined to prove it. However, unlike Yukimoto, when he learned the truth, he had been willing to accept it. Yukimoto on the other hand just simply refused to listen to anything he did not want to hear and he had given Mion a hard time whenever they crossed paths.

Deciding that it was best to take the notebook home she found herself putting the lid back on the dustbin and started walking towards her apartment.

* * *

It did not take long for Shion to get to her apartment. Once inside, she immediately went into her room, passing her bodyguard and caretaker, Kasai Tatsuyoshi, who just watched her go into her room, but otherwise said nothing.

"Oh, Kasai, I'll be in my room for a while," Shion's voice came from the other side of the door, "Please don't disturb me, okay."

"Okay, Shion-san," Kasai called back in a professional tone.

* * *

Inside her room, Shion placed the notebook on her desk and then went over to the phone. Sure, she was curious about the notebook, but she decided to check up with her sister first since she was a bit scared that perhaps she may have taken her teasing a bit too far. Sure she liked to tease her sister, but she did wonder though if perhaps Mion was becoming fearful that she was trying to steal Keiichi away from her. She did admit though that that was indeed tempting. After all, despite looking nothing alike, Keiichi did have similarities with Satoshi and Keiichi had patted her on the head like Satoshi had done. However, she found herself having to berate herself and remind herself that Keiichi was not Satoshi. After all, Satoshi had a soft and warm hand when he had patted her head, but whenever Keiichi patted her head, his hand felt rather rough and it made her feel uncomfortable and she had to admit that Keiichi's brash personality was a bit of an off-put. However, Keiichi meant well and she knew that he was only trying to be kind.

"I wonder, if perhaps I am taking this whole teasing thing a bit too far," she said to herself.

She had to admit that despite flirting with Keiichi in order to get under Mion's skin, she had to wonder if perhaps she was subconsciously developing feelings for him. Sure, she admitted that she was in love with Satoshi and did not want Keiichi replacing him, but she just could not help herself. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Mion has someone and she did not. Okay, Satoshi was alive and in comatose beneath the Irie Clinic, but perhaps it was due to the fact that Mion could actually interact with Keiichi and he could respond to her that really got her. Satoshi couldn't interact with her and despite her talking to him, he did not respond to her at all. Maybe that's what annoyed her.

Anyway, putting her frustrations aside, she picked up her phone and dialled her sister's number and after about three rings, someone answered.

"Mushi-mushi," Mion's voice came from the other end.

"H-hey, onē," Shion said hesitantly with a gulp as she sat down on her bed, "H-how are you?"

"Oh, hey, Shion, what a pleasant surprise," Mion said in a rather carefree tone, acting as if their previous meeting back at Angel Mort had never happened, "What's up?"

Shion then breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Mion had not shouted at her or hung up.

"Look, onē, about what happened at Angel Mort earlier," Shion started to say.

"What, you're calling about that?" Mion's voice came, sounding a bit annoyed before regaining its composure, "Look, don't worry about it. You were only teasing. All siblings do that."

"Y-yeah, I suppose so," Shion said in agreement, though her voice sounded rather hesitant to believe that, "So, we cool?"

"Of course, we're cool, Shion, you big dummy," Mion reiterated, sounding rather frustrated, but gentle at the same time, "You're my sister, Shion, and I'd hate to fall out with you over something normal siblings do to each other and besides, you never actually kissed Kei-chan, so no worries."

"Arigatō, onē," Shion thanked with relief as she let out a sigh.

"Hey, I know that I act like you annoy me and that I'd be better off without you, but don't take it to heart," Mion went on, "You tease me and I react and sometimes say things that I don't actually mean. If that's what you're concerned about, then don't worry. I don't mean anything I say."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt," Shion thought to herself.

"Oops, I gotta go," Mion suddenly said in a rather urgent tone, "Family Meeting and Oni-baba's waiting."

"Oni-baba," Shion growled contemptuously as a wave of anger suddenly caught hold of her.

It was the name that both twins had given for their grandmother due to their dislike and in Shion's case, pure hatred of her. Both twins hated their grandmother, that much was true, but for Shion, her hatred was far greater due to the fact that she had been ostracised and viewed as a disease to the family. Shion blamed her grandmother for that and believed that she was the driving force behind the resentment that many in the family had for her and despite Mion trying to assure her that Oryō did indeed care for her and was only treating her the way she did for the sake of appearances, Shion had a hard time believing that. As far as she was concerned, Oryō hated her since not once had she seen any evidence to indicate that her grandmother did indeed love her.

"Hey, come on, Shion, Oni-baba's not that bad," Mion said, trying to reassure her sister.

"Yeah right," Shion thought to herself, "You're probably deluding yourself, Mion."

"Mion!" a male voice that Shion recognised as belonging to one of those who hated her came from the background over the other end of the phone, "Family Meeting, stop talking with your carbon-copy and get your ass in here, now!"

"Gotta go," Mion said rather hastily, "Love you."

Shion then heard Mion hang up as she felt a wave of pure anger wash over her at hearing the voice yelling at her sister.

"Curse you, Oni-baba," she spat hatefully, "A thousand curses on you and the rest of your despicable family. I can't believe I was actually spawned from the same gene pool as you."

She then slammed the receiver down, got up from her bed and marched over to her desk before taking the chair out from underneath it and sat down and opened the notebook at the back of the front cover and started to read the instructions.

"Okay, the human whose name is written in this notebook shall die," she read, knowing that she had already read that part, "Okay, I know that part."

She then started to read the other instructions underneath.

"This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind while writing his or her name; therefore people sharing the same name will not be affected," she continued to read on as her curiosity continued to grow, "If the cause of death is written within the next forty seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen. If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack. After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next six minutes and forty seconds. Wow, I have to say that for a prank, this sure is quite detailed. Whoever thought this up must've put an awful lot of thought into it."

She then found herself taking a pen of the small plastic cylinder cup sitting on her desk that had a variety of pens and pencils in it and then placed the ball of the pen above the top of the first page of the notebook.

"So, I just think of a name and a face and then write the name down and depending on what I write down, the victim can die quickly or slowly, huh?" she mused to herself, "Yeah, as if that's really gonna work."

However, even as those words left her mouth, she just could not help but wonder if it was really true or not and unfortunately, she was finding herself wanting to try it out. Even though she was convinced that it was just a prank, she had this almost maddening urge just to try it out anyway.

"Now, if I'm gonna write someone's name in this thing, who's it gonna be?" she found herself thinking before she even realised it, "But wait, if I write someone's name down and they die, would that make me a murderer? Does someone who drops dead after having their name written in a notebook count as murder?"

Shaking her head, she went through a list of people that who could be potential guinea pigs for this, but remembering her grandmother and believing that she was responsible for the pain and hardships she had to endure and having already burned Oryō's hate-filled glare into her mind, it was easy for Shion to picture her grandmother's face and before she had even realised what she was doing, she found that she had already written her grandmother's name in the notebook.

"Huh, what, did I just…?" she said to herself in shock and disbelief as she realised she had written Oryō's name in the notebook, but this shook her head, "Nah, you're worrying over nothing, Shion. Nothing's gonna happen, but still, it's nice to dream."

She then closed the notebook and got up from her desk before lying down on her bed.

* * *

Meanwhile in the main meeting room in the Sonozaki Estate in Hinamizawa, the Sonozaki Family had all taken their respective spots as Oryō sat at the head with Mion taking her place beside her as the heiress of the family. Normally, it would have been her mother, Akane who would have been the heiress since she was Oryō's daughter and would have been heiress. Unfortunately for Akane, she had fallen in love with someone who was not native to Hinamizawa and it was a well-established fact that Oryō absolutely hated outsiders and Akane stood up to her mother and it led to a falling out between them and Oryō had been forced to disinherit her daughter. However, what saved Akane's lover and Mion and Shion's father was that he had ties to the Yakuza and he managed to prove himself useful to his mother-in-law and so, Oryō tolerated him. However, because Akane had lost her position as heiress, the position as heiress now ended up going to Mion… well technically Shion since she was the older twin and the real Mion, but unfortunately due to that twin switch, "Shion" now ended up finding herself having to deal with the responsibilities of being heiress as well as having to take the name, "Mion" on a permanent basis.

That had proved rather terrifying for her since she had been the one who requested that they switch that time. However, what she did not expect was that she would be branded with the Oni tattoo that signified her status as heiress; something that should have been her sister's and afterwards, she felt as if she had robbed her sister and she remembered how she had panicked and fled, believing that her sister would come to believe that she had deliberately sought to steal her position from her. However, that was not the case. In truth, neither twin had known that that time was when the family had been planning to mark their heiress. However, Mion, who was still Shion back then then had ran away, fearing that her sister was going to kill her and she remembered getting caught in a rainstorm and ended up cold, wet and hungry. However, Shion, who had been Mion back then had discovered her and noticed the tattoo and Mion could remember getting rather hysterical, begging her sister not to kill her and she remembered how Shion had slapped her across the face to calm her down and then embraced her in a gentle and loving hug and also she declared how she would protect her from then onwards.

However, unfortunately, circumstances had dictated that Shion's promise would be all but impossible to fulfil. Shion had been blamed for her running away and Mion remembered when she had stood up for Shion, their grandmother had physically struck her for daring to stand up for her twin and then a few years later, Shion had been sent away so that the family could be rid of her and Mion remembered how painful that had been for her. In fact, the entire twin switch in which they had permanently taken on each other's identities had been painful and difficult. Both twins practically had to brainwash themselves into thinking that they were each other to avoid alerting the family to their mistake. Mion used to call her sister, aneki before the switch and Mion remembered how Shion would call her, imōto. However, after the switch, after a while, Shion had come off with just addressing her as, onē where she just called her Shion or she would sometime use, onē as well when addressing her sister.

"Okay, is everyone here?" Oryō asked, bringing her granddaughter out of her thoughts as she looked around the room to see if anyone was missing and when she saw that everyone was indeed presence, she relaxed, "Okay, first agenda for today's meeting is…"

However, as she was talking, she suddenly stopped and tensed up and her hands flew up to the left side of her chest over her heart and she grasped her chest as she took a large intake of breath before she fell forward, collapsing on the floor.

"Bā-chan!" Mion exclaimed in frightened alarm.

"Okā-sama!" Akane gasped in shocked alarm, unsure what to do.

"Huh, Oryō-sama, are you alright?" someone asked rather fearfully as someone else cautiously approached Oryō's silent and motionless body.

Bending over, the man put two fingers to the side of her neck where her pulse was situated and after a brief few seconds, he looked up with a rather grim expression on his face and even before the words left his mouth, everyone present knew what it was he was going to say.

"She's dead," he said in a tone completely devoid of emotion.

"D-dead!" Mion exclaimed in complete and utter disbelief, refusing to acknowledge what she had just seen despite having witnessed it first hand, "No, impossible, how?"

"Well, I can honestly say that from the way she clutched her chest before she died, the cause of death was most likely a heart attack," a man that Mion recognised as her father summarised as he studied Oryō dead body.

"A heart attack?" Mion said in a tone that still held a vast amount of disbelief as she still did not want to accept it since now it meant that she was Head of the Sonozaki Family and she feared that she was not ready to take up such a role yet.

"Well, she was really old and coming to the end of her life anyway," Mion heard someone say and the tone they used infuriated her.

From the way they had said it, it was like they did not consider it a big deal and Mion did know that the Sonozaki Family did have its internal disagreements and in fighting. Not everyone had been happy with Oryō's rule over the Sonozaki Family, especially after she had spared her youngest granddaughter when she had been obligated to kill her. A lot of people had deemed her unfit and unworthy of being the Head of the Family, but Oryō had managed to keep them under control. It was the main reason why she had appeared so cold and cruel while in public. Mion knew her grandmother well. After having been forced into the role of heiress, Mion had come to learn that her grandmother was not the cruel and heartless tyrant she portrayed herself as. In truth, she had only acted that way because it was what was expected of her as Family Head. In truth, she really did love Shion, but had to hide it due to her opponents and because of them, she could not afford to look weak as she had known that they would have capitalised on any show of what they perceived as weakness at every opportunity they could find and use that to undermine her rule. It had come as a shock to Mion. She had been shocked to learn that her grandmother had actually loved her before she and Shion traded places and that she genuinely loved Shion. Also, Oryō genuinely loved her daughter and in private, they were both rather close, but unfortunately, since Akane was viewed as a disgrace by many in the family, Oryō had been forced to keep her daughter in a subservient role that was beneath her because of her opponents from within the family.

Mion remembered six years previously when the Japanese Government were planning on building a dam that would have flooded the village and many in the village were opposed to it. However, there was a small minority in the village that were okay with the dam project and they were not happy at Oryō's opposition and felt as if she was trying to oppress them. Their leader was none other than Satoshi and Satoko's stepfather and during a meeting in which the construction company were trying to appease the angry villagers, the Head of the Hōjō Family stood up and told everyone exactly how he felt and actually had the gall to disrespect Oryō to her face and it ended up descending into a brawl. However, after the dam project was cancelled after the Construction Minister's grandson, Inukai Toshiki had been kidnapped and the ransom had been paid, those who had supported the dam project found themselves the targets of persecution and were ostracised; especially the Hōjō Family since they had been the leaders. However, unfortunately, the villagers' stigma towards the Hōjō Family extended to their children, something that Oryō had not intended, but unfortunately, she could not step in as her opponents would have undoubtedly used that to undermine her rule and Oryō had instructed Mion not to do anything either. However, after the death of Satoshi and Satoko's parents in the June of 1980 during that year's Watanagashi Festival, both of them went to live with their stepfather's younger brother, Teppei and his wife, Tamae, where they were frequently abused and Mion did the only thing she could have done, though she had ran it by her grandmother to see if it was okay and Oryō agreed, albeit rather reluctantly. What Mion had done was establish a safe-zone in the school in which Satoshi and Satoko would not have to face the stigma of the villagers and in doing so, she had also founded the Gaming Club as a means of keeping Satoshi and Satoko away from their abusive aunt and uncle for as long as possible. The original club membership had originally consisted of herself, Satoko, Rika, Rena and Satoshi and she came up with the club rules to provide motivation for its members to win. Each club member was to strive for first place with a full-hearted attitude and also, as a club member, one had to do whatever it took to win, which unfortunately meant that cheating was not only allowed, but actively encouraged and also winners were allowed to do anything to the losers, which were known as Punishment Games and the losers had to go through the Punishment Games no matter what. She invented those rules in the hopes of providing motivation to win and the fear of punishment games would give everyone an incentive to win. It was hoped that with this on their mind, Satoshi and Satoko would forget about everything else and just be themselves and she also hoped that the villagers would see it and come to accept them.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened. Despite the villagers coming to accept them, they feared making their true feelings known, fearing that they would end up being branded with the same stigma. In truth, everyone had decided to let bygones be bygones long ago, but had feared that there were those who refused to let it go and so, the persecution had continued even though no one really minded Satoshi and Satoko anymore.

Anyway, not only had Oryō forgiven the Hōjō Family, when she learned that Shion had fallen in love with Satoshi, she actually approved, but unfortunately, she had been forced to denounce her and Mion remembered that it had led to Shion and Oryō getting into a huge argument in which Shion let her hatred for her be known and Mion knew that had she not gotten into "Heiress Mode" and stepped in, Shion would have ended up doing something she would have come to regret. She knew her sister and knew that Shion was getting ready to physically assault their grandmother and if that had happened, Mion would have been powerless to do anything and Shion would have ended up having to have faced a far worse punishment than having three of her fingernails ripped out. Afterwards, Mion had ripped three of her fingernails out so Shion wouldn't have to suffer alone and then confronted Oryō about the situation and even contemplated killing her, but Oryō had assured her that she was okay with Shion and Satoshi one another, but that she had to keep up appearances.

"It's not you, bā-chan, it's the damn system," she thought as she remembered that confrontation, "Damn it all, why can't we just be ourselves instead of putting up those accursed masks just for the sake outdated traditions?"

* * *

**Friday 22****nd**** June 1984**

The following day back in Okinomiya, Shion was in her apartment, lying on her bed with her hands clasped behind her head as she stared up at the ceiling. She had a day off from work and unfortunately for her, she found herself just lazing around in her apartment doing nothing and it was safe to say that she was bored out her brain. She just did not know what to do of her days off. Normally she would have gone to Hinamizawa and teased Mion, but unfortunately, thinking about their confrontation the previous day and despite Mion assuring her that it was okay, she decided to play it safe and give her sister a break. After all, Mion would always go ballistic every time she saw her in Hinamizawa. She also decided against going to see Satoshi since it was the main reason she went to Hinamizawa in the first place with teasing Mion being just a secondary objective and since no one else knew about Satoshi, teasing her sister also provided her with an excuse to be there. However, despite their conversation, Shion decided that Mion was probably still coming down from the rise that she had gotten out of her. After all, despite constantly teasing Mion, Shion did genuinely love her sister.

However, her thoughts were suddenly interrupted when she heard the doorbell to her apartment.

"Huh, that's odd, I'm not expecting anyone," she said as she got off her bed and went over to her desk and opening the top drawer that was on top of her desk, she pulled out her taser that was sitting next to the notebook she had acquired the previous day and then slowly walked out of her bedroom and to the door.

Kasai was currently out shopping for food and Shion knew that it could not be him since he would just walk in. She knew that she was not expecting anyone and wondered if perhaps it was a stalker or an enemy of the Sonozaki Family. After all, the Sonozaki Family had ties to the Yakuza and Shion knew that given those ties that the Family had also gained quite a lot of enemies and even though, no one was supposed to know of her existence, which was one of the reasons why Oryō had sent her away in the first place, she knew it was possible that someone may have uncovered her existence. Unfortunately, if it was indeed an enemy of the Sonozaki Family, then Shion figured that they would be wasting their time as there were many in the family who would be glad to be rid of her in which case, they would only be doing them a favour.

Alternatively, it could be a stalker who had been stalking her. She was under no illusions about her own beauty and knew that her Angel Mort work uniform highlighted her beauty pretty well and she remembered having to deal with perverted morons in the past who tried to harass her during her shift. It was not too much of a stretch that perhaps one of them decided to stalk her and see where she lived and despite having Kasai for protection, the fact of the matter was that at the moment, Kasai was not here to protect her and so if it was a stalker, they would be free to strike without fear of being discovered. However, for them to have known that Kasai was gone meant that they had to have been studying his daily routine as Kasai was normally at the shops during this time of the day and also, they had to have known that she was off work. However, if they thought that she was just a defenceless porcelain doll then she was going to show them just how wrong they were. She always carried a taser around for self-defence.

However, once she got to the door and opened it, ready to zap the would-be attacker with her taser, her eyes widened in shock when she saw that it was none other than her sister.

"Shion!" Mion exclaimed in surprise as she noticed that her sister had been ready to thrust her taser right into her.

"Onē?" Shion said in equal surprise, but then calmed down, "Gomen, I thought you may have been a stalker."

"A stalker?" Mion said as her eyes widened, making it clear that she was feeling rather offended at her sister's remark, "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Well, I wasn't expecting anyone and well, you can't be too careful," Shion replied in her defence, "Anyway, what are you doing here? I thought you'd be having one of those outlandish club activities of yours."

She glanced over at a clock that was in the room and saw that she was right. It was early and Mion should be back at school with the Gaming Club.

"Club's been cancelled for the day," Mion said with a sigh, sounding rather depressed and Shion then noticed that her sister was not really all that cheerful.

In fact, Mion looked rather distraught, depressed and upset and from the looks of it, she was fighting to hold back tears.

"Kei-chan had to go into Tōkyō with his parents," Mion started to explain, "Satoko's come down with a rather nasty cold and so Rika and Hanyū are taking care of her and Rena's otō-san had an accident and is in the hospital."

"What, is he alright?" Shion asked curiously, fearing for Rena's father.

"Yeah, it's nothing really all that serious," Mion said in assurance, "His hospital stay is just simply a precautionary measure. However, Rena wanted to be with him just in case."

"I see," Shion said with a sigh, "And what's up with you? Somehow, I get the feeling that you would have cancelled the Club anyway given that you're really depressed. What's wrong?"

Mion then let out another sigh and for a few moments, she seemed to be fighting to hold onto her composure, but it turned out to be a failing battle as the tears suddenly started to roll down her cheeks in torrents as if a dam had just burst.

"Oni-baba's dead!" Mion cried as she ran over to her sister and wrapped her arms round her causing Shion's eyes to widen in shock.

"W-w-w-what?" she stammered in disbelief.

Mion did not seem to hear her and cried into her shoulder.

"Hey, Mion, what are you saying?" the older twin asked as she suddenly felt a horrifying feeling of dread threatening to flood her mind.

Mion did not answer right away and it took her a few seconds for her to regain her composure.

"Oni-baba's dead," she repeated with a sniff, "I don't know what happened, but not long after I hung up after talking with you, she was about to start the meeting when all of a sudden, she had a heart attack and died."

Shion's eyes widened in horrifying shock and complete disbelief as she remembered the notebook and the rules on how to use it and she remembered how she had written her grandmother's name in the notebook.

"No way," she thought to herself as the feeling of dread washed over her, "There's no way, it's just impossible."

* * *

**Author's Notes** – This is my latest project and I decided to do something different from my usual. Okay, this is my first chapter and just one thing to point out. All those supposed grammar mistakes in Turrok's speech are intentional. It's just the way he speaks and not mistakes. As you can see, I've gotten into Higurashi and despite the references to its sequel, Umineko; I'm not all that knowledgeable on Umineko, though I have a fair idea of what it's about.


	2. Reality of the Notebook

**When Worlds Crossover**

**Reality of the Notebook**

**Disclaimer** – I do not anything from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni or Death Note. Higurashi is the property of Ryūkishi07 07th Expansion and Studio Deen and Death Note is the property of Tsugumi Ōba, Takeshi Obata, Shūeisha Inc. and MADHOUSE Inc.

* * *

**Okinomiya, XX Prefecture, Japan – Friday 22****nd**** June 1984**

"No way," Sonozaki Shion thought to herself after hearing the news that her grandmother had died from her identical twin sister, Mion, who released her from her embrace once she regained her composure, "There's no way, it's just impossible."

A wave of horrifying dread had washed over her as she remembered the previous day when she had come across a mysterious notebook lying on the ground. The notebook or Death Note as it was called had instructions on how to kill people and according to those instructions, the writer could kill people by writing their intended targets' names so long as they had their faces in their minds and that if they did not specify a cause of death, then the person would simply die of a heart attack forty seconds after having their name written down and Shion remembered writing down her grandmother's name, though she did not really believe that the notebook had any power and that it was all just a silly prank. She had not really expected it to work, though she had to admit that at the time, she had fantasized that it did work and that her grandmother had really died. After all, she absolutely despised her grandmother and had, in the past, fantasized about killing her in so many different ways; not that she was actually planning on carrying those fantasies out, but she enjoyed dreaming about it.

Now, however, it seemed as if one of those fantasies had become a reality and now after hearing the news of her grandmother's death, Shion just stood in shocked disbelief, unable to believe what she had just heard. She remembered her grandmother and all their past meetings and she remember how Oryō had ostracised her and had practically cut her off from the family, hoping to get rid of her and all because she was alive. She had wished death on her grandmother so many times in the past, but never actually had the courage to think up or even execute a plan on how to do it. She knew that even if she had thought up of a plan, something would inevitably make her balk at the last minute and reconsider. She did not know what it was, but something would always prevent her from going through with killing her grandmother and now that she was really dead, she could not help but feel an overwhelming sensation of guilt and perhaps even sorrow mixed in with her shock and disbelief.

"A heart attack," she crocked out after a good few minutes, still not wanting to believe it as she took a few steps back from her sister, "Are you certain?"

"Uh huh," Mion said with a nod, "That's what it looked like, though they're sending her body in for an autopsy just to be sure."

"That just can't be," Shion said to herself in complete and utter disbelief as she shook her head and her body started to tremble and to her, it was as if Mion was longer in the room.

"I don't want to believe it either," Mion said with a sniff, completely unaware of her sister's current state, "But bā-chan was getting old and was close to the end of her life anyway, so I suppose it's not too much of a surprise, but it's just that… it just came on so suddenly."

"That's not possible," Shion said aloud in a guilt-ridden tone of denial, ignoring her sister's statement, "No, that just can't be. I didn't kill her, I didn't, I just didn't, did I?"

"Huh, Shion, what're you saying?" the younger twin asked in confusion as she momentarily forgot about her grief for the moment and then she noticed that her sister appeared to have gone emotionally numb as her body stopped trembling as she was tensed up with a look of pure horror and the colour had appeared to drain from her entire body.

Mion could not help but feel a tad scared for her sister at the moment. From the way Shion was acting, it was as if she believed that she had killed their grandmother when that clearly was not the case, but why would Shion believe that she had killed their grandmother when it was clear that Oryō had died from a natural cause of death? No one had the power to cause heart attacks, did they? Of course, she knew how much Shion hated Oryō and also knew that her sister would sometimes fantasize killing her, but she also knew that Shion would never go through with it if she had the opportunity. Despite everything that their grandmother had put her through, Mion knew that somewhere deep within Shion's subconscious, Shion did genuinely love their grandmother, even if she was too full of rage over their grandmother's treatment of her to admit it. Maybe it was because Shion probably spent most of her time wishing that Oryō was dead and now that had actually happened. Yeah, that had to be it, Mion had figured; Shion was just experiencing what it was like to learn the lesson, "Be careful what you wish for".

"No, I didn't kill her," Shion went on as she shook her head once again, her tone starting to sound desperate, "I didn't, I couldn't have, I…"

"Shion!" Mion shouted as she walked over to her older sister slapped her across the face before speaking in a calmer voice, "Shion, get a grip, you didn't kill bā-chan. She perished of natural causes. I'll admit, it was a bit sudden and out-of-the-blue, but bā-chan was really old and would've probably died anyway."

"B-b-but," Shion stammered in protest, but Mion placed her right index finger up to Shion's lips, silencing her.

"Bā-chan was in her eighties," the younger twin went on as she explained how old their grandmother was, "And people that old are prone to that sort of thing."

"It's not old age that causes heart attacks, it's eating habits," Shion protested as she recalled having done some research into the causes of heart attacks while at St Lucia, "Well, it's most commonly a build-up of plaque in the arteries, which is mostly caused by eating habits or smoking, though it does take years before a heart attack becomes possible."

"Yeah, but as I've said, bā-chan was well into her eighties and close to death anyway," Mion pointed out, "Even if she hadn't died yesterday, she probably would have died sometime in the next couple of years anyway. It's just that with her dead, that makes me the Head of the Family and… well, I just don't think I'm ready to take that on just yet."

"Oh great," Shion thought bitterly as she realised the implications of Oryō's death had on her sister, "Now I've just created another problem."

With everyone believing her to be the younger twin and therefore, the family outcast, Mion would now be expected to follow their grandmother's example and deal with her sister with the same disdain and derision as Oryō had. Shion was under no illusions about that. She knew how Mion would be expected to act towards her and any refusal on Mion's part could cause a civil dispute within the Sonozaki Family as Shion was aware of the Family's internal struggles and disagreements. Several members of the family were not too happy at Mion's closeness with her and if Mion did not get in line with what was expected of her, then those who opposed her would undoubtedly use any opportunity they could find to stir up trouble and seek to undermine her rule.

"Oh no, I could have just ruined my relationship with onē," she realised as her eyes widened in fearful realisation.

"Come now, Shion, I realise that you may have wished for bā-chan to die," Mion said, unaware of her sister's terrifying epiphany, "But that doesn't mean you killed her. It was just a coincidence, that's all; nothing to be worried about. Things that that happen."

"Coincidence?" Shion said, acknowledging that she had heard her sister and a light of hope suddenly started to shine inside her, "Yeah, it's probably just a coincidence."

Mion nodded as she embraced her sister in a hug, though despite the light of hope, Shion could not help but fear that the notebook's power was real and she really had murdered their grandmother.

"But, onē, with Oni-baba now dead, doesn't that make you the new Head?" she asked in an attempt to get the notebook out of her mind as she brought up her realisation.

"Yeah, but… I'm not ready," Mion said with a shudder as the tears that had been flowing down her cheeks after she had lost her composure before resumed, "I'm not ready. I don't think I'll ever be ready."

Shion's eyes widened as Mion wrapped her arms round her for the second time and the proceeded to cry into her shoulder.

"I'm scared," the younger twin admitted with fear evident in her voice, "I don't want to be the Head, I never wanted to be the Head, that was supposed to be you're position."

Shion nodded with a sigh. That was indeed true. She remembered that she was the real Mion and therefore the position as heiress rightfully belonged to her. Unfortunately, Mion, who had been Shion back then had insisted that they swap over. Unfortunately what neither twin could predict was that that time when they did switch was when Shion, who was then Mion was supposed to get branded with the Oni tattoo that would signify her status as Family Heiress as well as the next Head of the Family when the current head passed away.

"Gomenasai, Shion," Mion apologised as she briefly choked up and the tears continued to flow in torrents, "It's all my fault you ended up like this. It's all my fault. If I hadn't insisted we switch… you wouldn't have…"

"No," Shion said, shaking her head in agreement, "I wouldn't, instead you'd have been in my position and I can tell just by looking at you that you would not have been able to cope with it, just as I doubt if I would have been able to have coped with the responsibilities of being the next Head of the Sonozaki Family. Yes, you were the one who suggested that we switch, but neither of us knew that you would be branded with that tattoo."

"Shion…" Mion cried as she looked up into her sister's eyes, "A-a-aneki…"

Shion's eyes widened in surprise for a moment as she remembered that Mion had not addressed her as aneki in a long time since before their permanent switch.

"Gee, you haven't called me that in a long time, imōto," Shion said, making that fact known while addressing her sister in the way she used to as well, "Look, I know this has been hard on both of us, but we both managed to pull through. I think you'll make a great Family Head. After all, you were able to put your feelings aside rather well when you had me rip out three of my nails."

Mion cringed as she heard the bitterness in her sister's tone while referring to that horrible incident. In truth, Mion really had wanted to side with Shion and truth be told, she had actually been quite glad that her sister was finally giving their grandmother a piece of her mind and even though she did not admit it, she had actually been rooting for her sister. Unfortunately, the situation they had found themselves in had been serious and had Shion persisted, things would have undoubtedly have gotten out of hand and so, Mion did the only thing she knew that she could have done. She intervened before Shion could strike their grandmother, since she knew that Shion would listen to her and go along with whatever she wanted, even if she did not like it. However, from the way Shion ended up begging to her, she sounded as if she believed she had been betrayed and despite Shion's assurances afterwards that she held nothing against her and that she had only been acting the way she was expected to, Mion knew that that was a lie. She knew that her sister had pent up resentment towards her.

"I already told you before, you were only acting as you were expected to as Heiress," Shion said as if she had read what her sister was thinking, "I don't hold it against you."

"You and I both know that that's a lie," Mion admitted, deciding to risk making her sister angry, "I'm not stupid, you know. You say that you don't blame me for how your life turned out, but I know that deep down, you really do blame me. Gomenasai, gomenasai, gomenasai, I'm sorry I ever born. I've caused you nothing but heartache and sorrow, I robbed you of what was rightfully yours and now, I have someone in my life that I can see every day and yet, when you had someone, he went and disappeared. It's no wonder you tease me so much. I don't blame you if you're jealous of me and Kei-chan, I'm…"

She then burst out crying, unable to string her words together any longer and despite admitting all this to Shion, she continued to latch onto her and cry into her shoulder, leaving Shion to contemplate what she had just heard.

"Yes, mostly all of that is true," Shion admitted with a nod after a few minutes of silence as she rubbed her sister's back and she had to admit that she was indeed jealous of her sister and Keiichi, especially since Keiichi seemed to share some of the same character traits as Satoshi, "I guess I am jealous of you and Kei-chan and as much as I hate to admit it, I may have started to develop feelings for him despite the fact that I don't want anyone replacing Satoshi-kun in my heart. Satoshi-kun's the one for me and yet, whenever I see Kei-chan, I just can't help myself. Something about him just reminds me of Satoshi-kun."

"Y-y-you m-m-m-mean that y-y-y-you're in l-love with K-K-Kei-chan t-to?" Mion asked, stuttering curiously, though her older sister could detect a hint of fear in her voice, but even so, Mion did not release her embrace.

"To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not really sure, myself," Shion replied honestly with a sigh, "He does share some of Satoshi-kun's traits and maybe I'm just misunderstanding my own feelings and in reality I'm just viewing him as a temporary substitute or maybe, as you said… maybe part of me really does resent you since you have someone in your life and I don't; at least not anymore among other things. Maybe, I'm subconsciously seeking to steal Kei-chan from you, but not because I've fallen in love with him, but rather, I' using him as a means of getting revenge against you. However, I can't really say for certain. It's just so confusing. Anyway, as you say, I did feel rather betrayed after you got between me and Oni-baba and appeared to take her side and when you apologised afterwards; somehow, it just made the situation feel even worse. However, now that I think about it, you actually saved me that day."

"Huh?" Mion said in surprise, though she had to admit that she was completely taken aback by her twin's honesty.

"I mean it, onē," Shion went on, deciding to go on, "If not for you, I would have physically lashed out at Oni-baba and… well, let's just say that if I wasn't in hot water before, I would definitely have been if you hadn't intervened. Heck, having three of my nails ripped out is fairly light in comparison to what could have happened to me and I couldn't even carry that out without freaking out, though I will give you credit, at least you tried to calm me down. If I couldn't go through a light punishment without freaking out, I can't really imagine what I would've been like if I had to go through a far harsher punishment."

She had to admit that that was true. Despite the punishment being rather light, she had still freaked out after she had removed her first nail and despite her sister's best efforts to calm her down, she ended up suffering a full blown panic attack and two of the Sonozaki Family's henchmen had to remove the other two nails for her. If she could not keep herself composed while going through that punishment, then she knew that she would have not been able to have handled a far worse punishment and because of that, she found herself being grudgingly thankful to Mion since she knew that had she gone ahead and struck their grandmother, then Mion would not have been able to have done anything to help her and even worse, no doubt Oryō would have made Mion administer the punishment just to rub salt in the wound. In Shion's mind, Oryō was a heartless tyrant and she would not put it past her to make her sister hurt her since she remembered how she had lashed out at Mion years earlier when she brought her home after she had run away after the tattoo incident and Oryō had blamed her and when Mion stood up for her, Oryō had viciously whacked her with her cane for daring to defend her twin.

Mion nodded in agreement as she remembered that incident.

"But I bet that doesn't change how you feel," she said with a shudder, "It seems that no matter what, all I do is cause you nothing but heartache and pain without meaning to. Perhaps it would have been better if bā-chan had killed me when we were born. At least you would have had a happy life and would not have come to be aware of my existence. You could have still been Sonozaki Mion and no one would have been any the wiser."

Shion suddenly wrestled free of her sister's embrace, surprising Mion, but before she could contemplate, Shion then raised her hand and delivered a rather hard slap across her sister's cheek, causing the room to echo with sound of the contact and Mion stared at her older sister in shock as Shion glared at her.

"Don't you ever say that!" the older twin spoke in a furiously harsh tone, "Don't you even think that!"

Her look then softened as she once again raised her hand to her sister's cheek, but this time, she gently placed it on her cheek and started to rub, soothing the stinging pain, surprising Mion.

"B-b-but it's true," the younger twin crocked, "Ever since I was branded with this wretched tattoo, your life's been nothing but one pitfall after another. Gomenasai…"

"Don't you dare say that," Shion said somewhat threateningly as she glared at her sister, "Nothing that's happened to me was your fault. I know that at times, I may resent you for it and stuff, but I guess that's just me looking for someone to take my frustrations out on. Now let me ask you something, imōto; did you want me to get sent away? Did you want me to be ostracised and persecuted?"

Mion shook her head.

"N-no, of course not, you're my sister," Mion said in a hastened tone.

"And after I had three of my nails removed, didn't you also remove three of your own and in fact, was it not you who said that we were twins and that it wasn't fair if only one of us suffered?" the older twin went on and the younger nodded as she remembered that she did say that, though that had been after Shion had tried to strangle her after her comment about Satoshi.

"I will at admit that perhaps there are times when I wished you weren't here, but you're my sister and I wouldn't have it any other way," Shion continued as Mion looked at her curiously, "I guess I'm just miffed at the fact that you're also in pain. You may think that you're existence is responsible for my hardships, but whenever you're in pain over it, I'm in pain. Your pain is my pain. Anyway, I thought that after I confessed the truth about Kei-chan, you'd have screamed at me, what gives?"

Mion sighed as she hung her head for a brief moment and after a second or two gathering her thoughts, she looked up, straight into her sister's eyes.

"This may sound strange to you, but after hearing that, I want to be angry, I really do," she said simply, "However, maybe it's because I'm depressed… I don't know, but I just don't have the heart to be mad at you. I'll confess that whenever you tease me in Kei-chan's company, I am a bit frightened that you'll steal him from me and that's why I can get so riled up. However, now that you've admitted it, well… I can't help but wonder if perhaps you're right on all counts. Who knows, maybe you are just seeking to use him to get back at me or perhaps you really are falling for him or maybe you're desperate or maybe even it's a combination of all three. Like I said, I should be angry with you, but I just can't. You're all alone. You found someone whom you could spend the rest of your life with and then suddenly, he ups and disappears without warning and now you're back to being all alone again. Taking that into consideration, I can't be mad at you."

Shion just listened intently, letting Mion say her piece without interrupting.

"I know it probably sounds weird, but like I said yesterday while on the phone, though I don't act like it when you tease me, I do care about you and I want you to find happiness," she went on as tears once again started to flow down her cheeks, "It's not fair that only one of us finds happiness while the other is left to stew in misery."

"There, there, calm down," Shion said soothingly and she moved towards her sister and brought her into a loving embrace, "You're my sister, Mion, and I'll always love you no matter what. Sure, we may have had our share of hardships, but we'll pull through… somehow."

"I hope you're right, aneki, I hope you're right," Mion said, sounding a bit fearful and unsure.

"I hope so to," Shion said gently.

* * *

A while later after Mion had left the apartment; Shion found herself walking the streets of Okinomiya at night with the Death Note under her left arm and a pen in her right hand. After Kasai returned, the twins had informed him about what had happened to Oryō and needless to say, he had been shocked, though he did accept that she had died from a heart attack due to her age and Shion had instructed him to take Mion home and also told him that she would be going for a walk. Streetlights lit up the night sky and illuminated the city. However, Shion paid her surroundings no mind as she was currently wrestling with her inner thoughts.

Oryō was dead, apparently having died of a heart attack and Shion had discovered the Death Note, which was said to kill people via heart attacks just by writing the target's name down while having their face in mind if the cause of death was not specified. However, Mion, despite not knowing about the Death Note had claimed that it was a coincidence, assuming that Shion had wished that their grandmother would die, which was technically true.

"Yeah, Mion's right," she told herself, "It was probably just a coincidence."

However, unfortunately even as she told herself that and repeated it in her head like a mantra, she just did not sound so sure of herself. After all, Oryō had died not long after Mion hung up the phone after their conversation just as she had been about to start the Family Meeting and Shion knew that it was not long after her conversation with her sister over the phone that she had written their grandmother's name in the notebook and if the Death Note was real, then it meant that Oryō had died forty seconds after her name had been written down. Despite Mion's assurances that it was probably coincidence, Shion just could not get the notebook out of her mind.

"There must be something wrong with me," she continued to muse in her thoughts, "Mion's most definitely right, but why can't I just accept it and move on and why am I so upset over that old prune's death anyway?"

That was another thing that had been bugging her. She had absolutely despised and reviled her grandmother and yet, she found herself grieving over her death despite wishing that it would happen for years. She had not expected that. She had thought that she would have been rather ecstatic over her grandmother's demise and even had fantasies in which she was dancing over Oryō's grave while proclaiming rather loudly how glad she was that she was dead. Instead, all she felt was a wave of regret mixed in with guilt and she did not know why. It could not be because that deep down; she had secretly loved her grandmother, did she. She doubted it very much. After all, as far as she was concerned, Oryō had been the Demon Granny from Hell in Shion's mind and ever since the tattoo incident that had left her permanently stuck with the name, Shion, not once did she see any hints that her grandmother loved her or… what if Mion had been right and Shion simply let her rage cloud her judgement and refused to see any hints that told her that Oryō had secretly loved her?

"Nah, that just can't be," she thought, shaking her head as the anger over her grandmother's treatment of her flared up.

It was indeed a mystery to her as to why she was grieving. She just could not understand it. However, remembering Mion and what it meant for her, plus the possibility that she may have killed her grandmother herself, which meant she may be technically responsible for it, Shion found herself coming to rationalise her grief.

"Yeah, that must be it," she thought to herself with a content nod, "It's not because of Oni-baba herself, it must be because of what it means for Mion."

She remembered pondering on the realisation that now that Mion was the new Head of the Family, she would be expected to get in line with the traditionalists and join those in the family who despised her in ostracising her. She knew that that was what was expected of her sister and that any resistance on Mion's part could cause a civil war within the Sonozaki Family since she knew that there were those who were not happy about Mion being heiress and would most likely seek to undermine her at every given opportunity and Shion knew just how vulnerable and insecure her sister was. Sure, Mion may act like a big and tough tomboy and may at times address herself as "Mion-ojisan", but Shion knew that it was all just a mask to hide her insecurities. In fact, her treatment of Keiichi whenever h lost a club activity and had to go through a Punishment Game reflected Mion's insecurities. Mion loved Keiichi, but just could not gather the courage to tell him how she felt and fearing that he'll reject her, she constantly sought to make him lose so that she could put him through punishment games in an attempt to hide it from him.

"Not the best course of action if I do say so myself, especially since Rena also seems to have feelings for him," Shion mused to herself, getting off-topic.

She knew that Rena also had feelings for Keiichi and knew that if Mion did not shape-up and spill it out, then Rena would steal him away from her and she shuddered to think of what that would do to her sister, though she did have to admit that the part of her that resented her sister was secretly rooting for Rena. Shion figured that if she could not have Keiichi, then him ending up with Rena would be the next best thing since it would mean that Mion would suddenly find herself in the same boast as her; well, maybe not exactly the same boat, but close enough. She wanted her sister to know what it felt like to no longer have the person she loved and the fact that if Keiichi ended up with Rena, then Mion would have no one to blame but herself for not acting sooner only seemed to add to Shion's glee.

However, despite this, Shion still loved her sister and absolutely hated herself for thinking like that. Despite Mion having someone in her life, Shion knew that the fact that she, herself did not really want to hurt her twin. Mion was also in pain over the fact that her sister was in pain and her sister's pain only served to increase her own and the more her own pain increased, the more Mion's increased as well. Anyway, that was probably why she was upset over Oryō's demise; not because of Oryō, but because of what it meant for Mion and her love for her sister was vastly greater than the resentment she felt towards her.

"Yeah, that's it and it probably is a coincidence," she repeated to herself, "And yet, why can't I ignore it?"

She had contemplated getting rid of the notebook and when she had gone out for a walk, she had originally intended to dump it in the first bin that she could find, but unfortunately, her curiosity overpowered her common sense and she found that she had a pen in her hand as instead of getting rid of the notebook like she had originally planned, she found herself wanting to try it out again; if for nothing else, just to alleviate her fears that she had indeed murdered her grandmother instead of it being a coincidence.

"Gee, there must be something wrong with me," she thought for the second time, "I should just get rid of this thing and be done with it and yet… I seem to have gained this irresistible urge to try it out one more time, just to be sure."

Looking around, she saw many other people passing her by and going about their normal business, not really paying attention to her or anyone else for that matter. Remembering the rules of the notebook and knowing that she needed to know the person's name and face before she wrote in the notebook, she realised that she did not really know most of the people that passed her by and she had this unbearable urge to write in the notebook. She wanted to see if it was real or not as quick as possible as she felt that every second that went by without knowing only caused the fear that she had murdered Oryō to get increasingly worse.

"Damn it," she went on in her thoughts, "Why can't I get this whole thing out of my head. Is this what peer pressure feels like? But how can I be feeling it when there're no peers to pressure me? Anyway, if I'm going to use this thing, then I need I guinea pig, don't I? However, the notebook only works if I know the person's name and have their face in my mind's eye and just to be sure, I better add a cause of death just to be absolutely certain. Anyway, if I'm going to test it, I might as well go for a criminal. After all, no one will shed tears if a criminal were to kick the bucket."

She then went over a list of known criminals that she had seen on news reports recently since their names were well known and their photographs had been broadcasted as well, which meant that she also had their faces as well.

"Of course, problem there is if they're too well known, then their death may be covered up," she continued to monologue to herself, "And I daren't try it on those who despise me in the Sonozaki Family either. After all, if they were to all start dying in succession, anyone with half a brain may see the connection and trace to back to me."

She shuddered at the thought, knowing all too well that the people of Hinamizawa tended to be very superstitious and easily believed in the existence of the supernatural and not even the revelations of the Watanagashi Murders and Disappearances had been enough to dissuade their beliefs. Despite those incidents being proven to have been a series of contrived coincidences and people taking advantage of the folklore of Oyashiro-sama's Curse, a lot of Hinamizawans still believed in the supernatural and it was not much of a stretch to believe that some in the Sonozaki Family were among them. If she tested the notebook on those who despised her and they really did start to die, then no doubt those who believed in the supernatural would automatically come to the conclusion that they were being cursed and anyone who was smart enough could easily figure out that those who were dying were those who hated her and could easily at the very least come to suspect that she had a hand in their deaths and since the believed in the supernatural and the main reason that the youngest born twin was murdered because it was believed that they were a demon child; they would easily see it as proof that those superstitions were real since everyone aside from Mion believed that she was actually the younger twin.

"Gee, I could very well end up digging my own grave," she thought with a shudder, "Everyone believes that I'm the younger twin and if the notebook proves to be real, then all they'll need to do is realise that all those who died were those who hated me and they'll no doubt delude themselves into believing that the superstition surrounding twin births is real and that I'm simply taking my revenge by somehow hexing them, which unfortunately would turn out to be half-true."

However, as she was pondering the possible repercussions of such a move, she failed to pay attention to the path in front of her and was brought out of her thoughts when she walked into someone and the person she had walked into was obviously not paying attention to where they were going either since the impact caused Shion to fall on her butt, though she somehow managed to miraculously hold onto the notebook and the pen she had been holding as well.

"Hey, watch where you're going, Sonozaki-san!" the person that Shion bumped into said in a rather rude, uncaring and slightly annoyed tone, glaring down at Shion, not looking in the least bit concerned for her wellbeing.

"G-g-gomen, Yukari-san," Shion replied with a stutter as she looked up and realised who the person she had bumped into was and glared back at her as she picked herself up.

Itsumi Yukari, the woman who Shion had bumped into had long black hair that went down to the back of her waist and really sharp intelligent looking brownish red eyes and currently she was wearing a pair of low-heeled black shoes, a long flowing bright green skirt that went down to her ankles and a white sleeveless blouse with a variety of purple and pink flowers with each flower having a maximum of four petals each shaped like the stereotypical petal drawings. However, what was most impressive about her blouse was that it was really successful in covering her cleavage in its entirety.

"Yukari!" Shion thought with a bitter snort, "Maybe I should test it on her."

Yukari was also a co-worker at Angel Mort and was perhaps the only one who did not like Shion all that well. At nineteen-years-old, she was a college student doing a course in business studies. However, unfortunately for her, her mother was in poor health and so, she had decided to get a job on the side in order to raise enough money to cover the cost of her mother's medical bills and her mother's condition only worsened over time. Yukari was a hard worker and knew the value of hard work and she had to work extremly hard to get her job at Angel Mort and that was where she had come to hate Shion. She knew that Shion was the niece of the establishment's owner and felt that she had only gotten her job because of that fact and did not have to put in the same amount of work she had put into it in order to get the job. She was all too aware of the Sonozaki Family and their influence and needless to say, she resented Shion for being a Sonozaki, not knowing the circumstances behind her life and believed that Shion had gotten everything handed to her where as she had to work to earn everything she had.

"No, I should definitely avoid using it on those I know," Shion went on as Yukari had turned on her heel and left without saying another word to her, though Shion did feel her right arm tremble as she discovered that she had already opened the notebook and her arm seemed to have developed a mind of its own and she briefly had to fight to prevent herself from writing Yukari's name down, "Besides, despite not liking me, at least she doesn't make a big deal out of it."

That much was true. Yukari did indeed hate her, but unlike those in the Sonozaki Family, she did not go out of her way to make her life miserable and pretty much tried to ignore her whenever she could and in situations in which that was not possible, Yukari had shown that she was not above putting her hatred to the side and tolerating her and even managing to co-operate with her when the situation demanded it, though she made it clear that she was not happy with it and in return, Shion had shown the same degree of tolerance.

"If I did test it on her just because she doesn't like me, that would make me rather selfish, wouldn't it?" she went on as yanked her right arm to the side and closed the notebook in an attempt to battle the temptation, "I'd be a selfish murderer and besides, it would also be vastly disproportionate to kill her off, not to mention, who'd look after her sickly mother then? I guess I could also kill her off, but I don't even know her name or even what she looks like."

She then shook her head in horror as she realised what she had just been thinking.

"Wait, what the hell am I thinking?" she continued to monologue as she stared at the notebook as a sliver of fear shot up her spine, "Don't tell me that the notebook's trying to possess me and get me to write in it!"

Once again, the thought of going through with her original plan and just getting rid of the notebook entered her mind and she had to admit that it was fairly tempting. All she had to do was find a bin or dumpster and throw it in and that would be that. However, another part of her just refused to let it go and unfortunately, that part of her won out in the end. She honestly could not explain it. Maybe she was indeed possessed by the notebook, but the fact of the matter was that her grandmother was dead, having perished from a heart attack and the rules on how to use the notebook had dictated that once a name was written in the notebook, that person would die and if the writer did not specify a cause of death within forty seconds of writing the person's name then the person would die from a heart attack.

Of course, it could have just been a coincidence like Mion had said when she believed that her sister had wished that their grandmother would just die and despite Shion trying to reason that that was probably it, she just could not accept that without proof. She just had to know if the notebook was real or not. Another factor that went against the coincidence theory was the timing in which Oryō had died, which had been not long after Mion had ended her conversation with her over the phone and it was also not long after then that Shion had written Oryō's name in the notebook and that really unnerved her, but still, it could have been a coincidence, but Shion felt that she had to know for sure. Perhaps she wanted to try it out so that when it did not work, she would feel vindicated and that she had not killed her grandmother. However, the fear that it was not a coincidence and that the notebook's power was indeed real continued to nag her, which was why she had decided to be selective in her choosing of a possible guinea pig.

* * *

Meanwhile, Mion was in the back of Kasai's car as Kasai slowly drove through the streets of Okinomiya on the route that led towards Hinamizawa. Normally, by car anyone travelling to Hinamizawa would be out of the town and nearing the village by now. However, unfortunately for Kasai and Mion, they were driving through a diversionary route that had been put in place due to roadwork on the shortest route to Hinamizawa and unfortunately the diversion took longer, not to mention that there was a huge among of traffic because of the diversion and the ride back to Hinamizawa had come to a crawl due to the resulting gridlock.

"So, Oryō-sama's dead?" Kasai said to Mion as he briefly glanced at Mion in the back, who looked rather depressed.

"Yeah," Mion said simply with a nod and her voice was so quiet that it was just barely above a whisper and lacked Mion's usual enthusiasm.

"And she died from a heart attack?" Kasai went on, making it clear that he was having a hard time believing it.

He honestly had not heard about Oryō's death the previous day and had only learned of it after returning from the shops to find Shion with her sister, Mion in the apartment and after Shion told him what had happened, Mion's presence suddenly made a lot of sense and he guessed that Shion had heard her grandmother's fate from her sister. It was not that he was not used to Mion's presence at her sister's apartment since he had been present in the past when Mion paid her sister visits in the past and he knew that Mion would visit her sister periodically to check up on her, but he had not expected to see her at the apartment so early since he was also aware of Mion's Gaming Club that she had founded two years previously in an attempt to help the Hōjō children and in the past, Mion would always visit later because of it. He had thought that she and her club would be engaged in one of their crazy games. However, he guessed that after hearing of Oryō's demise, Mion must have obviously have cancelled the club for the day since she obviously was not in the mood for a club game.

"Yeah, she did," Mion said with another nod in response to his statement.

"Well, given her age and the fact that she had not much longer to live anyway, I guess it's really not all that surprising," Kasai said, giving his opinion on the matter, "But I was under the impression that Oryō-sama was fairly healthy… well as healthy as one could possibly be at her age and I didn't know that she had heart problems."

"She didn't," Mion replied, speaking in a louder voice this time, "As far as I was aware, bā-chan's heart was perfectly healthy and didn't seem to be in any difficulty. I suppose that it could just have been her age, but it's just that it just happened out of the blue. One minute, she was perfectly fine and the next, she just dropped down dead without any warning."

"Well, heart attack victims vary," Kasai explained in a professional tone, "Some experience more pain than others and sometimes, they just drop down dead after appearing fine the previous minute; it all depends on the severity of the heart attack, Mion-san or should I be addressing you as Mion-sama now that you're the Head of the Sonozaki Family?"

"Just Mion-san, please, Kasai," Mion said with a growl of irritation, clearly not happy about his professionalism, "And yeah, I suppose you're right, but bā-chan seemed to take a severe heart attack. Surely there must have been some warning signs, I mean a severe heart attack just can't happen out of the blue like that without some prior warning, right?"

"To be perfectly honest with you, I can't say for certain, Mion-san, since I'm not an expert in that sort of thing," Kasai sighed as he knew that Mion was still having a hard time accepting what had happened and had clearly still not come to terms with it, "Gomen, Mion-san, but if you want my opinion, if there were warning signs in the past, then they've obviously been missed. In other words, you and everyone else failed to detect them."

"Not what I wanted to hear, but I suppose you're right," Mion huffed in grudging acknowledgment as it was clear that she did not like the way in which Kasai had mentioned that to her.

"Gomen," Kasai apologised in response.

Mion just nodded, acknowledging that she had heard him and that she accepted his apology.

However, just as the traffic started to move, Kasai started to move the car and then suddenly, the car seemed to dip down at the upper right-hand corner where Kasai was and they both felt the car bump at the driver's end.

"Kasai, what's going on?" Mion inquired curiously.

"Hmm, we seem to have a flat tyre," Kasai replied after pondering the situation for a moment.

"A flat tyre?" Mion repeated, feeling totally dumbfounded.

"Don't worry, Mion-san, there's a spare in the trunk," Kasai informed her as he drove the car to the side of the road and then got out.

He then went to the back of the car where the trunk was and after opening the trunk, he pulled out the spare tyre along with the tools he would need to replace it with.

Mion sighed, shaking her head as Kasai then rolled the spare to the front of the car where the flat one was and then went back to collect the tools.

"Great, just great, this really isn't my day, is it?" Mion complained in her thoughts as she looked out the window to her right and saw the long line of cars and other road vehicles lining the road, "At this rate, it'll be the early hours of the morning before we even get to Hinamizawa."

She then opened the back door at the car's left and then walked over to a nearby lamppost and leaned her back against it and folded her arms as she waited for Kasai to finish replacing the tyre. However, as the traffic on the road ground to a halt once again, Mion noticed a flatbed truck that was carrying a cargo of giant long grey metal cylinder pipes was currently sitting beside their car as it waited to move. Luckily for Kasai, it was not too close and he had plenty of room to work. However, as Mion moved to turn her head to face the other way, she noticed that the ropes holding the metal cylinders in place were in the process of snapping as it was clear that they were being stretched beyond their limits.

"KASAI, LOOK OUT!" she screamed out in warning, causing Kasai to look up, but unfortunately for him, as soon as he noticed the huge cylinders, it was too late.

The ropes tying them to the flatbed snapped and the cylinder at the top of the pile to the left rolled down off the flatbed and before Kasai had a chance to react, it fell on top of him, crushing him.

Mion gasped in pure shock and disbelief, though she cringed as she heard the unmistakable sound of bones being crushed.

"K-K-Kasai?" she crocked out quietly as she cautiously walked round to the right side of the car as if believing or hoping that Kasai was still alive.

However, as her eyes fell upon the scene, she brought her hands to her open mouth as her eyes widened in gaping horror at what she saw. All she could see of Kasai was from the waist down as the rest of him was firmly wedged between the huge big cylinder and the car and a pool of blood was already starting to form round his legs.

"Oh shit," one of the truck's occupants said in a tone that sounded more annoyed than horrified as both he and his partner came out to inspect the damage, "Someb'dy got wasted."

"Was that our fault?" his partner asked, sounding more horrified than the first man.

"Yeah, like fuck it was!" the first man said with an uncaring scoff, "It was dem boys who tied da cargo ta da flatbed, it ain't our fault."

"Hey," his partner protested in shock, clearly not too happy with his partner's lack of sensitivity, "Can't you be more sensitive? Somebody just got fucking killed for god's sake and you're acting as if it's just an inconvenience!"

"So what?" the first man scoffed uncaringly, "It ain't ma problem. A didn't kill da guy."

However, for Mion, their argument failed to register with her as she just stood there in total disbelieving shock as she stared at what she could see of Kasai's body. Everything seemed to shut down with her as she felt her mind go numb as she refused to accept the sight that she was seeing. All she could focus on was what was left of Kasai, even as a crowd of shocked onlookers and some of the other vehicles' drivers and passengers started to gather, but for Mion, none of that mattered or even registered in her brain. Even as the truck's occupants continued to argue over whose fault it was, Mion just ignored them. It was as if the whole world had come to a crashing halt and Mion could definitely feel as if her world was shattering. First her grandmother dies and now, her sister's caretaker and bodyguard was now dead not even twenty-four hours later. Sure, she may not have seen much of Kasai due to him taking care of Shion, but Mion still considered him a friend since he was close with her mother and looked after her sister. She just could not get her head round the fact that he was now gone.

Anyway, she suddenly felt a pair of hands on her shoulders as someone stood in front of her, blocking her vision of Kasai and she then felt herself being shaken.

"Hey," she heard an unfamiliar voice said, laden with concern, though in her current state of mind, it sounded rather distant and far away, "Hey, are you okay?"

"Huh?" Mion said after a while when she finally managed to bring herself back to reality and saw a man staring at her with a concerned look on his face.

"Are you alright?" the man inquired yet again.

"Are you wi' da guy dat was killed?" the uncaring truck occupant asked in a rather rude and annoyed tone.

Mion just nodded, unable to speak.

"Well, it's 'is own damned fault!" the man exclaimed, much to the shock and outrage of many of the onlookers, including his own partner, "Shouldn't 'ave been sittin' at da side o' da road."

"He was replacing a flat tyre, you moron!" someone shouted in Kasai's defence, "I saw it with my own two eyes! Their car had a flat tyre and he was replacing it, have you no heart!"

"Whatever, A could care less," the trucker scoffed uncaring as he turned to his partner, "Let's go, a don't 'ave ta put up wi' dis shit."

He then stormed back towards the truck, much to the disgust and outrage of everyone else and his partner just gave everyone, especially Mion a rather heartfelt apologetic look.

"Will you be alright, ma'am?" the man who had shaken her asked in concern.

Mion just nodded with a sigh, though in truth, she really was not in the mood to care about the insensitive trucker's attitude.

* * *

Overlooking the accident site, Turrok closed his own Death Note and put away his pen as he looked down at the scene. If it were possible for him to frown, then he would have one plastered on his face right at the moment since he was not too happy with how things had played out.

"Was dat really necessary?" he asked as he glanced at his companion who was currently behind him, floating just a few feet off the roof of the building they were currently at the top of, "Did ya 'ave ta 'ave me kill dat guy?"

"Potential witness," a cold, somewhat deep female voice came from his companion that was totally dead and devoid of emotion, "Don't forget, he's Shion's caretaker and there's a possibility that he may have ended up seeing something that he's not supposed to. If you want your entertainment, then you'll have to agree to do as I say for the time being, is that clear?"

"Crystal," Turrok replied, though it was clear that he was still not happy over having caused Kasai's death, "Dough, A still say that ya didn't 'ave ta get me ta kill da guy. A just don't see da entertainment value in it."

"I don't care what you think," the woman replied honestly in the same tone as before, "Just do as I say."

Turrok nodded, though he shot his companion a suspicious glance.

"Can't say dat A trust ya, dough," he said, making his suspicions known, "What's in it for you?"

"I don't expect you to trust me and it's just well that you don't," the woman replied honestly, not seeming to care that her honesty may jeopardise her partnership with the Shinigami, "I am not a being to be trusted and yet, you'll still go along with my plan regardless."

"What makes ya so sure?" Turrok asked in defiance.

"Because, my dear Turrok, you and I are more alike than you'd like to admit," the woman replied and the edges of her lips slowly curved upwards and formed a smile on the woman's otherwise emotionless face.

However, the smile itself was hardly a friendly smile. Glancing at the woman's smile caused Turrok to shiver as a hint of fear made itself known in his mind. The woman wore a sinisterly dark and somewhat smug smile. The woman had called his bluff when he hinted that he was considering walking out of their agreement. She knew that he would not abandon their agreement and her smile reflected that and he also knew that she was goading him into doing so, as if daring him to try and abandon her, knowing full well that he would rather not take his chances with the possible consequences. She had him and she knew it.

"Like you, my dear Turrok, I also suffer from eternal boredom and everything I do is just simply to stave it off, as you and your friend, Ryuk can attest," the woman went on, "My sole reason for helping you in finding your entertainment is that it also entertains me as well, are we clear on that?"

"Boy, Am da one dat looks like a monster and you look human and yet, you witches scare da shit outta me," Turrok said as he trembled under the woman's sinister smile, "Ryuk sure wasn't kiddin' when he said dat yer kind were all powerful. A doubt dat even da Big S would want ta mess wi' ya."

"Why, thank you," the woman said as her smile widened, happy for the small amount of praise that the Shinigami had given her.

* * *

Meanwhile, completely unaware of her caretaker's fate, Shion was still wondering the streets in search of a potential guinea pig to use the notebook on. Unfortunately, she was not having much luck. She had come across many people that she knew, but had decided not to chance using the notebook in case it was real and the worse any of those in Okinomiya who hated her did was just plain ignore her and thinking back to her brief encounter with Yukari, she had decided that if the notebook was real and they really did die, then it would have amounted to disproportionate retribution, something that refused to condone if for nothing else, despite the fact that they did not like her, they had done absolutely nothing wrong.

Of course, her mind did go back to her original plan and use the notebook on a criminal, but the problem was that despite knowing the names and faces of many criminals, if the notebook was true and they did die, then if they were well-known criminals, then there was a tremendous possibility that their deaths would be covered up and if they were not that well known and died in places where hardly anyone ventured, then it could take a while before their bodies were discovered and when their bodies were finally discovered, Shion knew that she would be unable to say for certain whether or not they died from the power of the notebook or not since she would not know exactly when they died.

"Damn it, I need results right away," she thought to herself, "I need to be right there and then when it happens to say for certain."

After all, if she wrote someone's name down and then further down the line it was reported that that person had died, then Shion would be unable to determine if the notebook was real or if it was another coincidence. After all, a well-known criminal's lackeys could easily disguise the fact that their boss was dead while they thought of a good cover story and when they finally did release the news along with their cover story, Shion would be unable to tell if it was real or not and investigating the circumstances behind their deaths could prove fatal and she was not prepared to take her chances.

However, she then came to the outside of Angel Mort and parked outside were three motorcycles that Shion guessed must have belonged to those three punks that had led to her meeting Satoshi for the first time. She remembered that day like it had happened the day before. She had been posing as Mion since her uncle had hired her and she told him that if the Sonozakis ever inquired about her presence at Angel Mort, then he could claim that she was Mion. Anyway, it meant that she had to pose as Mion since she had no idea who in the Sonozaki Family would be watching and they had still been looking for her after she had escaped from St Lucia back then. She remembered that she had been returning to her apartment after she had been shopping and one of her shopping bags at caught on a motorcycle, ripping the bag open and causing its contents to spill onto the street and she kicked the motorcycle in anger since she was already having a bad day, which caused it to fall and caused a domino effect to two other motorcycles that her been parked beside it and unfortunately, the motorcycles' owners had shown up and were not happy to see what she had done to their bikes and Shion remembered how they backed her into a wall and she had been reaching for her taser when Satoshi intervened, believing that she was Mion. At first, she thought nothing of Satoshi, but then he gently patted her on the head and that was how she had come to fall in love with him despite the fact that he believed that she was really her sister.

In any case, afterwards, Shion had informed Kasai of the three punks and he was able to do background checks on them and get their names.

"Sure, why not," she thought to herself as she noticed an oil tanker sitting at a red traffic light out of the corner of her eye, "Those three will be perfect."

She then started writing a scenario, being sure she put in the three punks' full names while at the same time, leaving hers out knowing that if she had written her own name in the notebook and it was real, then she would probably die since the notebook stated that anyone who had their names written in the notebook would die and did not want to chance writing her own name in the notebook in case writers were not exempt from the rule.

"Okay, now then, let's see what happens," she said as she walked over to the three motorcycles and was going to pretend that she slipped and fell into the motorcycles, to cause a domino effect, but to her surprise, just as she was about to enact her plan, she genuinely slipped and fell forward and instinctively, she reached for the motorcycle nearest to her to stop herself from falling and when she did, it caused all three to fall over.

"Not what I had in mind, but still, at least I still got the desire effect," she said aloud as she picked herself up.

"Eh!" a familiar and furious sounding voice came from behind her, causing her to turn and though and behold, the three punks were standing there glaring at her as they looked between her and their bikes.

"Gee, you guys really need to find somewhere else to park your bikes," Shion said in a wisecrack tone with a smug smile on her face, being unable to resist taunting them.

"Don't get smart with us, nē-san," the punk in the middle, whom Shion knew as Akamaru Reiji said as he advanced on her.

Looking at all three of them, Shion saw that they all wore identical uniforms that consisted of black shoes, black trousers and black blazers with huge yellowish white buttons. Reiji had styled curly black hair that came out at the front beyond his forehead and black eyes. The punk to his right, Amayuri Kenji was a but pudgy and had bushy curly brown hair and black eyes and the last one, Ayatsuki Shinji was mostly bald aside from a few rectangular tuffs of dark brown hair at the top of his head and black eyes and unlike the others, he had his blazer unbuttoned and also had bandages wrapped round his abdomen.

"Yeah, you ruined our bikes, so how about you entertain us and maybe, just maybe, we'll forget the whole thing," Kenji added, causing Shion to cringe as she knew exactly what they meant when they said "entertain", though she had to admit that she was getting a bit fearful; not because of the situation she had put herself in, but because the responses they were giving her were exactly what she had written down in the notebook.

"Yeah, so what's it gonna be, nē-san?" Shinji put in in a smug tone as if believing that there was nothing that Shion could do to escape her predicament.

"Sorry, fellas, but I'm going to have to pass," Shion said as she suddenly burst into a run, catching the three punks by surprise.

Shion, now that she thought about it and becoming scared since everything that had happened so far had been written in the notebook decided to run down the pavement as she could honestly say that she had gotten cold feet and wanted to back out. However, instead, as if her body had developed a mind of its own, Shion found herself running across the road like she had written in the notebook and no matter how hard she tried to alter her course, she found, to her absolute horror that she was not in control of her own body and it was acting on its own.

"Hey, get back here!" she heard Reiji call out as she was sure that he was picking up his motorcycle at the moment, "You're not gettin' away that easily!"

She then heard him rev up his motorcycle and give chase, just like she had written in the notebook.

"No, don't tell me!" she thought as a horrifying realisation suddenly washed over her and she knew right then that all three punks' fates were sealed.

"Hey, Reiji, look out!" she heard Kenji call out and she was able to glance over her shoulder and saw Reiji on his motorcycle crossing the road after her, but then suddenly, the oil tanker she had seen earlier waiting at the traffic light slammed into him from the side, causing bits of scrap metal and blood from where Reiji got splatted to fly out to the sides and over the tanker and Shion could not resist the urge to scream in horror as the tanker did not stop and continued to drive onwards and turned a corner.

"Oh no, Reiji!" Kenji exclaimed in horror, unable to believe what he had just witnessed.

"Crazy driver!" Shinji growled angrily as he also just could not believe what he had just seen, "He didn't even stop! What's the deal with that?"

"Don' know, but I ain't stickin' 'round ta find out," Kenji said as he reached into his right trouser pocket and pulled out a butcher's knife.

"Neither am I," Shinji said as he also reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out an identical butcher's knife.

They both then raised the their knives to the right side of their heads with the points pointing straight at their heads and then they both started to violently thrust their heads to the right and slam the sides of their heads into the knives and Shion could only watch in pure horror and disbelief, unable to believe what was going on and also unable to believe that she had caused this to happen.

"No, no, no, this can't be…" she said in an increasingly panicking tone as she shook her head, refusing to believe what she was seeing.

However, as both Kenji and Shinji continued to head-butt their respective knives, the scenery surrounding Shion vanished along with Kenji and Shinji and she suddenly found herself in a wooden storage shed. Her eyes widened as she recognised the storage shed and looking to her left, she noticed what appeared to be Mion confronting Rika, who had a knife in her hand. However, Shion knew that the person confronting Rika was not Mion and was in fact herself posing as Mion. She remembered this scene from her nightmares. She had Mion held up in a cell down in the Sonozaki torture chamber and had been posing as her while making it seem as if she had disappeared. It was one advantage to having an identical twin, she supposed. She could stage her own disappearance without having to go into hiding. All she had to do was keep her sister locked up, assume her identity and then tell everyone that "Shion" had disappeared and that was that.

However, each of her nightmares varied when it came to Rika. Everyone else; their fates were constant, but Rika's tended to vary. Sometimes, Shion managed to get her down into the torture chamber where she would torture her to death, but other times, Rika somehow discovered what she had planned and got the drop on her; at least she assumed that Rika knew what she had planned because Rika would pull out a can of some substance and spray it in her eyes, temporarily blinding her while she tried to inject her with some unknown drug from a syringe. However, Shion would always manage to gain the upper hand and it always ended with Rika committing suicide after commenting on how she would "make her own exit".

Anyway, looking at the confrontation, she saw that Rika raised the knife to the side of her head like Kenji and Shinji had done and then started thrusting her head into it. Looking at the apparition of herself, Shion saw how her expression was one of pure shock, but then the edges of her lips curled upwards as she started to laugh and it did not take long till she erupted in insane, psychotic laughter as Rika continued to head-butt the knife for a maximum of seven times before falling to the floor, dead.

"My god, is that really me?" Shion said in disbelief as she studied her apparition, who appeared to calm down a bit as she took a few steps back and held her hands over her chest before erupting into laughter once again as she threw her head back and look up towards the ceiling.

"I won, I won!" she exclaimed triumphantly causing the real Shion to cringe in terror as she was unable to believe what she was seeing, "I beat all those who killed Satoshi-kun!"

She then threw her arms out to the side and let out a rather loud laugh that sounded more like a rather horrifying ear-piercing shriek, causing the real Shion to tremble in fear as she felt shivers crawl up and down her spine at hearing her own psychotic laughter. Looking into her apparition's eyes, she did not see the same eyes she had seen whenever she had stared into a mirror. No, those were not her eyes. Those were the eyes of a purely psychotic and crazed individual who had clearly lost their mind and had fallen completely out of touch with reality. The crazed look in the apparition's eyes absolutely terrified Shion to no end. She found herself shaking in terror as she looked into those insane eyes and what made it all the more terrifying was that she knew that those eyes belonged to her. In her nightmares, she remembered making references to a demon in which she believed that a demon was in control of her and she remembered having similar thoughts two years previously when she had lost her temper and tried to strangle Mion after she mentioned Satoshi right after he disappeared. Had it not been for her noticing that Mion had three of her fingernails missing, then she knew that she probably would have killed her sister then.

"Is that what I'm like when I let th so-called demon loose?" she thought to herself as she shook her head in disbelief, unable to believe that she was really capable of such atrocities, "Can I really transform into an insane sadistic killing machine?"

It was a frightening thought. In her nightmares, she remembered everything, including her own thoughts. She had managed to get Keiichi alone during the Watanagashi Festival and had taken him into the woods in which they had come across Takano and her lover, Tomitake Jirō trying to break into the Saiguden, where the Furude Family kept all their old Watanagashi tools, which was off limits to anyone aside from the Furude Family Priest and anyone wanting in had to have permission from the Priest before they could enter, but Takano and Tomitake had broken in and invited her and Keiichi to join them and then Takano recited the history of Hinamizawa back to a thousand years previously when it was called Onigafuchi. However, afterwards when she was staying at the Sonozaki Estate, she had overheard Mion and Oryō discussing Takano and the police investigation and had taken it out of context, believing that the Sonozaki Family had been behind the mysterious murders and disappearances and Mion had caught her eavesdropping after answering a phone and fearing that she was going to be killed, she had used her taser to knock Mion out, then proceeded to do the same to Oryō intending to interrogate her about Satoshi's whereabouts, but when she tased her, instead of knocking her out; due to Oryō's old age, the taser had short-circuited her heart and killed her and so, Shion, posing as Mion then proceeded to kidnap the Village Head, Kimiyoshi Kiichirō after he badmouthed Satoshi, though tasing him did not prove fatal, but he had been unable to tell her anything and then, she decided to target Rika because she was a Furude and part of the Three Great Houses, though she had to admit that she hated Satoko because she believed that she was always being a burden on Satoshi and on wondering why Satoko hadn't been killed or "spirited away" by "Oyashiro-sama's Curse" when the rest of the Hōjō Family had apparently been targeted, she realised that Satoko was Rika's best friend and came to the conclusion that she was shielding Satoko from the "Curse", which added to her animosity towards Rika since she had wanted Satoko dead and Rika was preventing that from happening and she also remembered how Rika came by the Sonozaki Estate looking for soya sauce, which led to the confrontation that she had just witnessed.

"Rika's just a girl, not even a teenager," she said to the apparition who continued to laugh, though she knew that the apparition could not see or hear her, "How could you have come to believe that she had a hand in Satoshi-kun's disappearance?"

However, before she could ponder this, she felt herself being shaken.

"…'Ave you done…?" she suddenly heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like her own practically shouting.

All of a sudden, the scenery round about her shattered and melted away and she found herself back standing in the street across the road from the Angel Mort establishment and she was surprised to see Mion standing right in front of her screaming her head off. Looking past Mion, her eyes widened in shock as she saw the dead bodies of Kenji and Shinji, both now lying in pools of their own blood after having done what she had seen Rika do in her vision.

"What the hell have you done, Shion?" Mion screamed right into her face as Shion looked down to see that Mion had the notebook in her hand and from the look on her face, she had also read, not only the rules, but also what she had written and seeing how Reiji, Kenji and Shinji had all died exactly how she had specified, plus remembering that she had gotten cold feet, but found that her body had run on auto-pilot and refused to let her back out, everything came rushing back to her in one big massive flood.

Shaking her head in disbelief she found herself backing away from Mion.

"No," she said in a panicked tone, "Oh god, no, no, no, no, I don't believe it. No, my god, the notebook really is real after all!"

* * *

**Author's Notes** – My second chapter done and it's almost been a week. This is unusual for me as I don't normally update so soon after I post a chapter. Anyway, my whole thing with Shion wanting to back out, but finding that she couldn't was just to give her more proof that the notebook was indeed real and not just a coincidence and now she's faced with a vision of one of her psychotic counterparts in one of the worlds in which she goes insane. That'll play a key role in the story later on when Light comes into the picture; especially the whole "possessed by a demon" philosophy.


End file.
